Not a Humble Man

I am not a humble man. I am an arrogant man. A conceited man. A man unwilling to look his brothers in the eye. A man who looks them up and down; looking to mock, looking for a reason – any reason – to beat them, to humiliate them, to stand over.

I am not a humble man. I am man unable to kneel before the sun and accept its offering. No, I stand in front of the sun with my arm outstretched and my finger spread, slowly closing in on it, trying to hold it within my palm.
I am not a humble man. I am a dishonest man. An ashamed man. Ashamed of my heritage, my lineage, my poor intellect, my stupidity, my dull tongue, my slowness to wit – all this disowned, hidden, shut away.

I am not a humble man – no, I am unworthy of humility. I can but swallow a spponful of it a day, force it down my insatiable throat, hope it does me good. I can but force my knees to the Earth, shove a handful of dirt in my mouth, discipline my sneering tongue. I can but remeber to look at what's in front of me, to wonder at it, to remember how fleeting it is, that it ends; to feel the beginning of the breath and welcome the inhale with open arms; to let go of it and accept the exhale, to gaze at the current that is the inhale together with the exhale; to behold the beauty in it – the end and the beginning, the story it unfolds, the story I am unfolding, the story the person next to me is unfolding.

I am not a humble man, that much is clear to me. But a man is less defined by what he is than what he struggles to be. Such is humility.