Fragility of pride

Katherine S. Hsieh
2 min readSep 23, 2020

“Pride is a cold, stormy, barren mountain.” — John Thornton

Pride.

It’s a beating of the chest

A reveling in one’s superiority over others — scoffing at those ‘neath one’s feet.

An impulse to crush.

Destroy.

Pride.

It’s a guise of Perfection

A masking of one’s wounds — Plasticking of those open and old.

A desperation to brave.

Reinvent.

shield,

hide

The Fragility of pride.

Pride, it seems,

Stems from Insecurity.

Pride.

A mountain so proud of Its grandeur, height, peak

That it refuses to look down or around, in fear that in seeing the world around it would somehow diminish…

its Worth.

Value.

Mark on the earth.

Yet, in that very same refusal comes a loss. A loss of appreciation. Of beauty.

The view from above, towering.

For if the mountain could just look, it would see

An aerial view of a beautiful mountain landscape: a lake, dark green trees covering the slopes, and floating white clouds.
Photo by Gary Corken on Unsplash

See the rich, vibrant, green expanse that stretches for miles, the flora and fauna that bloom brilliantly, the opalescent hues — the ceruleans, timeless blue — of the water shimmering. The soft, white wisps of the clouds.

See the little ones below who have yet to grow. The ones beside who too have seen and bore and thrived. The ancient ones still but present, dusted in white.

And instead of peak, peaks. Instead of mountain, ranges.

And beauty,

And Beauty.

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Katherine S. Hsieh

An ABC (No, not the alphabet) || Moments — sometimes quotidian, other times extra-ordinary — worth telling…and reading. || Three loves: Words, Wit & Humor ||