There's this whole life experience that happens when you move out and earn your place in the world on your own merit. It kind of instills a sense of confidence and humility in you - to know that you've survived the cold of the world, but to also know how susceptible you are to losing everything if you drop your guard. It gives you a certain empathy toward your fellow man (who have survived the same trials you have), and makes you very grateful for what the world hasn't yet taken from you.
You lose your arrogance and your pride after you've weathered that storm, and you gain an instinct for acknowledging that core strength in others that you meet. It's this unspoken connection that links you to other people who have chosen (or been forced to) bare the weight of the world on their shoulders.
They make it work. They find a way. They do what needs to be done. And they ALWAYS help others - because there's no one else who can. It's a right of passage that results in you turning from a boy into a man.
And then there's this kind of person. Who has never earned anything for himself, or tried to weather the storm on his own. He's a child. A little child crying and complaining that his mother's milk is too cold.
You know what the difference between arrogance and confidence is, on a practical level? Arrogant people derive their delusions of superiority from an absence of failure - stemming from a lack of life experience. Confident people derive their value from their determination to persist after discovering that failure (and success) is an unavoidable symptom of life itself.
Arrogant men think there are 2 kinds of people in the world: Winners and losers, and they look down on losers for being inferior. Confident men know that the only 2 kinds of people are those who are both winners AND losers (because they choose to persist), and those who are neither (because they are too afraid of failure to even try).
This guy is the epitome of arrogant. He lives a sheltered life, being supported by others. His lack of life experience has resulted in a lack of failure, which has convinced him that he is superior to others who HAVE failed (when in fact they have had the balls to actually TRY at life, whereas he has not). He is cruel and uncaring because he has not seen how cruel and uncaring the world can be without his aid. He is nothing but a child.
I don't pity him or feel anger toward him. But one day he's going to be disconnected from his life lines, and he'll have to make his own way. And when that day comes he's going to have a lot of ground to cover. Those first 6-12 months are going to be hell for this guy. He's going to see how little the world values him or his angsty demeanor. His ego and his confidence are going to be absolutely thrashed, and all that will be left is a humble, hurt child struggling not to die cold and alone, crying under a bridge.
If he lacks character he'll move back in with his parents, living out the rest of his life shifting between a state of traumatic realization that he's worthless, and moments of vengeance, where he takes out his frustration toward the world that hurt him by destroying the confidence of others who have the misfortune of crossing his path.
If, underneath all of that childish, arrogant hatred, he possesses character, he might make himself into someone worthy of respect. I hope he is forced to see himself like that one day, and I hope he struggles through his hardships, grows, and earns a place along side the rest of us who keep the world turning.
Until that day comes though, he's just a symbol for who we could all be if we hadn't made the effort to keep earning, fighting, or providing. He's a living, breathing, cautionary tale.
Do not allow yourself to stagnate.
P.S.
I guess actually putting that all into words has made me actually think about this. I want to stress one thing here: The world -IS- cruel, cold, and uncaring. Which is why it's so important for us who can survive in it to choose not to be.
When you grow up and go out on your own, you see flashes of that cruelty. Some people hide from it. Some people move back in with their family. Some people lie to them self about it. Some people rage against it.
But some people accept it as a fact of life. They accept that there will never be a shelter for them, or a place of warmth and compassion. So they build that place for others. Because it should exist for some of us, whether the world thinks so or not.
There is nothing as sweet in this life as being able to live in a world where you are loved, safe, and provided for, surrounded by friends and family. That world does not exist naturally. It is an illusion. Which is why it is up to you to create it. You weather the storm for others. You provide shelter for others. You allow others to live in ignorance of the world's cruelty. You do this because no one else can.
