PRISONER EXPRESS

Pride, like many words of the English language as we [Americans] articulate it, and like American culture itself, carries its own set of ambiguities. The word has an etymological history. It derived from the Old English language spoken in England during A.D. 450 to A.D 1100. The word then was pryte and its derivative was prut, which meant proud (also of English origin)...

Anyhow, the ambiguities with this word that I speak of lay in the fact that, on one hand; we are warded against the development of pride in ourselves. And if we do not, our haughty ways will cause us to fall. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other ancient religions and philosophies implore us to eradicate pride from our psyches.

On the other hand, we are castigated for not having enough pride in specific instances, such as failing in school, giving up on the football field or other instances where we have exerted our best efforts, yet still have reached the end of our strength and wit. If you give up in the boxing ring, "You haven't any pride!" is what people cry.

But, when we succeed at some lofty goal and show signs of self satisfaction, they call this haughtiness or bragging. When we appear too pleased with our own abilities for other people's taste, we stand in need of stern admonishments. Oh, the ambiguities of pride!

Yet, pride, in itself and as we understand it, is not bad. And I urge the reader not to believe the lies of the contrary. For all that we do, we ought to do it with a sense of pride. Even, perhaps, in a spirit of competition. But, we can temper our pride with intelligence, reason, and understanding of what we're doing and why we're doing it. Also, we should always put forth our best efforts.

When I first set out to write prose, filling a blank page with words seemed impossible to say the least. And what it took for me to fill them was a belief in my own intelligence, a belief in the value of my own thoughts. With time, I found that I could fill the pages. One thought, one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time leads to pages. And it wasn't long before I discovered that I could fill hundreds of pages! For this, I'm proud and as Hemingway once said, "You can take that how you like, Jack..."