Ruminations on ... Pride

Pride can make you feel strong, but never make you feel happy.

So I came across that quote recently and it kind of hit a cord in me ... but I didn't really think much about it... then, white re-reading one of my favorite novels, aptly named "One Hundred Years of Solitude", one of the main characters illustrated the quote for me and I understood ... and worse yet, saw a certain parallel in myself ...
So this character I mentioned, Amaranta, nurtured what seemed like promising emotional entanglements only to cruelly and pridefully turn down the men once they proposed to her--despite the fact that she desired and was in love with them. She turned them down as a way to show them that she didn't need them, or their affection ... in one case, considering the story line, I almost would have understood having turned down the guy if she had not felt deeply for him ... but remembered that I suffered the fate of the rejected one once, as well as have been in the place of Amaranta as well; not a pleasant place to be in in either case. After rejecting her suitors, this character would withdraw into herself and feed her pride and intimately her anger against self. In one case, her anger and guilt was such that she placed her hand in a flame to punish herself.

So all of that made me think deeply ... I recently realized that my inner voice had finally gone silent. It was as if I had suddenly gone blind ... the voice of intuition went quiet and seemed to have bee replaced by what seemed to be some sort of unexplained pride and resentment that I was able to figure out just recently. Beside anger at some of my own actions--actions borne out of pride--I also became the angry at the choices of others ... not choices that should concern me as I am not responsible for their happiness ... and also realized in the last couple of days that since my living situation changed, my peace of mind ended. The anger, frustration, extreme emotional pride and resentment of the people around me truly infected me. I had let my guard down but I realized that I had to be especially guarded not to soak their emotions. The spiritual space very unclean. I am almost tempted to say that their "obsessors" were affecting me -- and I should not say their because it's just on individual ... but enough on that ...but this was a process that has been going for some time and has reached a terrible high point recently--so they say that realizing the issue is the first step!

So, yes, after some introspection I have realized that I have let pride get the better of me to the point of getting me stuck, almost paralyzed ... and in the process have hurt and caused some very important people in my life to distance ... and like the character in the novel, isolated myself from what I want and desire