Wisdom or folly

Is a knight better than his peers? Or those that have not been knighted?

Should we look at our excellence over others?

Or should we find our excellence in how we are today verses how or who we were yesterday?

To me, there is the title and then there is the commitment to living according to what the title represents. Anyone can be a "Knight", but actually living as one is much harder. Any person can be judged better or worse than their peers, but it shouldn't be based on title, but rather on action.

I certainly don't think we should ever look at our own excellence and use it to compare ourselves to others. Well, not unless we are willing to do the same with our own failures. I am a much bigger fan of comparing my current self to my past self in order to measure progress toward my goal of being a better self tomorrow.

Yes you last sentence Wes, for me. I think I sort of use 'excellence over the me of last week', or last year.... etc.

Or more specifically, sort of taking the now (or future) 'scene' and casting it backwards to whatever historical circumstance fits the closest - and trying to learn from it, and therefore do it better.

The nature of the mental effort probably changes when we don't have any to relate with in our history, and so in there we might naturally look to others or start trying to use pure imagination.

But focusing on the mechanism of that (instead of being within the process flow) can sink folk who are not quite capable of handling self failure..... as any decent comparison means being genuine to ones failure in the past, present and likely future. If it hurts too much to do this, then it probably will not work and people will develop those cognitive dissonances where the conscious intention becomes bound up in a struggle with the authority being given to the subconscious feelings and emotions. So to me, becoming a Knight involves in part with dealing with those sorts of wounds - so they don't stay open any longer then they need to be. And learning to make better decisions then before, by using ones history, environment examples and imagination, and when wounds re-open from time to time understanding how that might impact ones capacities and therefore capabilities.

I don't even venture into comparing myself to others for the most part beyond that, or at least I don't give it any more energy once I identify myself doing it. It's not necessarily easy though, as I think mimicry and social competition have deep biological footings. But I don't think its being untrue to that part of myself to better use them - which is how I see my view on it.