Humility
I come across this so often: X is a God in his field, and he is humble in spite of it. How does it matter whether Amitabh is humble or not? Would you like ARR's music any lesser if you found out tomorrow that his supposed humility is all a charade?
I'd imagine ARR - or any talented person, for that matter- would like his works to be liked for his talent, and not for his attitude.
This is myhumble opinion.
I'd imagine ARR - or any talented person, for that matter- would like his works to be liked for his talent, and not for his attitude.
This is my
posted by eV at 12:25 AM
11 Value-adds:
There is a lot of difference between liking ARR's work and liking ARR.
If ARR has a bad attitude, I would start disliking him, but would still appreciate his work.(Over a period of time, my personal opninion will play a role though in my judgement of his work)
Its the same attitude that people have towards Australian cricket. They play good cricket, but most people dont like them.
Forgot to put my name..
-Prabhu
Point taken, Prabhu. But when people claim to like a celebrity, its usually just faith rather than any rational reason. And humility is used as a cover to rationalise this faith.
Whether the celebrity be an artiste or a sportsman, at the end of the day you develop some "good" image of that person in your mind if you like his "works". When you see or hear about the celebrity's arrogant behaviour, invariably this "good" image will be tarnished. And the outlook with which you viewed his "works" previously changes.
However, there is certainly a difference between not liking a musician's works because he is not humble and not liking a sportsman's exploits for the same reason. To take an example, sometime a few months back, the Hindi music director Ismail Darbar made some really atrocious comments on Rediff (only God knows if those were true!). Anyway, even if I now have a poor image of him, the next time I listen to his songs, that's hardly going to matter since I'm certainly not going to think who's the music director for this song while I'm listening to it. On the other hand, I have poor image of Glenn McGrath because of the stupid remarks he makes in every series without fail. Now, when I am seeing him bowl, I'm thinking of nothing but him. Because, that's the signal going from my eyes to my brain at that moment. And so, whenever he does bowl a good ball, my verdict of how "good" it was will certainly be influenced by overall opinion of McGrath. I might still appreciate that it's a good delivery, but if it had been some other bowler whom I don't have a negative opinion about, I might have said it's great.
Don't know if all this really makes sense. Just my two cents.
I would disagree... I think a person's attitude is as important as his talent or potential where the formation of liking for that person is concerned...
So, someone may appreciate and praise Person X's work, but may not appreciate Person X himself. Ever thought why the likes of Salman Khan, Nicolas Anelka and Shoaib Akhtar are lesser respected and have more detractors that the likes of Abhishek Bachchan, Dennis Bergkamp and Shaun Pollock (inspite of supposedly being more talented)?
Personally, (and speaking for myself and ONLY myself), I dont like Manchester United, Ferrari and Michael Schumacher for this very reason
Attitude does not live as long as someone's work does.
Do we know what kind of a person Da Vinci was? How about Einstein, Mozart, Shakespeare? Most of the nerds have a horrible attitude.
But we really dont care about it. No one remembers it.
I dont care how good a person Anu mailk is or Deva is, After 60 years if someone asks me about them, I will say .."Oh ya..they stole someone else's work"
Similarly i wouldnt remember what kind of a person Mcgrath is/was, after 50 years I would remember him as one of the greatest bowlers.
Good Attitude is just a small value addition when a person is at his/her peak.
-Prabhu
Prabhu, you raised a good point. But, I must bring out the subtlety you missed. Even though we now do not care about whether Einstein, Newton or Shakespeare were humble or arrogant, I'm sure if we had a time machine and could ask someone from their times, we would get an opinion about their works that is colored by the opinion that person has about Einstein/Newton/Shakespeare's character. This is just like the fact that until I live, I'm going to pass on a tainted opinion of McGrath. But, future generations would judge McGrath only based on his statistics.
And I would argue that one's character matter because I would think that for any person, the opinion that people around him have about him would be more important than what people would judge him as centuries down the line. Who the hell cares whether people remember you or not after you die?
Anyway, Nirav, good to find another anti-Michael/Ferrari fan! Way to go :)
My (humble?) reaction to eV's question: why should Amitabh Bachchan be humble is:
Amitabh Bachchan need not be humble. But if he is, then it is another notable quality of his. Its true that our perceptions of celebrities is based mainly on our faith. But if a person is explicitly humble and 1000 people around me notice that about him when he walks to the stage to grab his award (like ARR), then that i think is a notable quality in that person. hence to conclude, one need not be humble, but if he chooses to be, then that is an impressive explicit quality that i have an eye to appreciate about him.
One wrong move can easily turn down that image and thats what makes it tough to stay humble for a long time. With more success comes a better feeling about oneself. Its a thin line between thinking you are good and successful vs. thinking that you are a god! The humble person in my dictionary thinks that he is good and successful and the not so humble person thinks that he is a god. I do not know about others but i find such narcissist gods nauseating :)
Every celebrity/person that is a favourite to some X has a higher probability of influencing the role model figure in X's mind. Hence placing some importance to values/behavior in one's image (atleast) i think is good because we do not gain much out of role models that are fools/empty noisy vessels.
There of course exist some obvious drawbacks like:
1. creating a good image of oneself is sometimes misused. Now that would be overdoing "placing some importance to values/behavior (atleast) in one's image" above. This leads to the problem of pretence to get work done!
2. Humble person != loser with a low self esteem. This is a possible misinterpretation right!
But overall the attempt at having atleast a few gods who dont think they are the centre of the universe is possible.
Disclaimer: All of the above is purely my opinion. You are open to yours!
Relevant to my previous comment, i would like to add that it doesnt matter if Amitabh is humble or not in order for me to enjoy his movie.
Acknowledging someone's work although is independent of his image, being in one's celebrity list depends a lot on the perception of his image.
It so happens that humility appeals to some like beauty appeals to many. So why should it not matter? Afterall its me making a choice that puts me in a better/worse position by liking/disliking something.
Gobble gobble gobble on some more comment space :)
Well... hadnt expected so much passion in the responses. :)
Anyways, dont have much to add. So will leave it at this, except for a request to Nirav.
Nirav, please tell me you dont think Salman Khan is a better actor than Abhishek Bacchan.
And btw, you did realise that my post was in response to something mentioned here, didnt u? :D
eV Sir, I did realize that :)
And yes... looking back, maybe Salman Khan is a bad example that I took on... other examples, I still stand by!
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