Some notes on modesty by perhaps the world's deepest thinker on the subject: Frank Ritter 11 February 2008 improved: 24may08/20may09/18nov10/9jul11/12sep19 Modesty is absolutely *the* best virtue. I've been taking modestly lessons from another professor. I can't give his name, as he does not want it known. Indeed, he does not even put himself forward as teacher in this area, he's that good. But he's very great indeed as he was able to point out to a graduate student in a seminar before asking his own superbly honed question ("answer as if I was a modest graduate student, not a x, y, and Z!, but as if I was just a humble graduate student"; when I heard this I *was* immediately enlightened to his true nature and to the possibilities in this area!). By modest, I mean the ratio of how great you say you are, to how great you actually are. To be really modest you have to get the denominator (the bottom-number) to be really large. Or, at least I think that is the easiest way. If I take these lessons, I recken that they will help me get ahead and be even greater! Currently, I think I'm his best student. And because I've had a better teacher than he has had (he's an autodidact), I am pretty sure I'll be able to exceed him in modesty. I expect this to happen very soon. To augment my learning, I'm taking on students myself. I know I'm not good enough to teach (just being modest), but is really is also a path to greatness. I'll tell you why. It has been said that to teach is to learn twice. If I take on more students than my excellent teacher, I'm sure to surpass him because of the extra teaching I'll be doing. So, if you need modestly lessons (and you probably do), I'm available. Sometimes I give these modestly lessons in impromptu and informal venues to people who obviously need them. (And, sometimes I even still receive them myself.) Some of my acquired, informal students are crying out for them each in their own, personal way, through lack of understanding of contemporary standards in hygiene, in customer service, in the quality of food delivered to paying customers, or in the quality of written material shared with me for evaluation by various national and international agencies. These lessons are sometimes just short, pithy comments about how the performance was not nearly very great, or I am able to point out deep character flaws that appear to have gone unnoticed and uncorrected in the student, their family, their village, and their educational service and employer. I am, of course, as inspired by my teacher, as generous as I can be given these situations. These impromptu lessons also help me, as further teaching. But they help me in another way as well. To be great is to serve (which most readers will know). Great people eventually learn that they have to give back, to give to the community, their culture, their family, and the world, to the influences on their life that helped them develop and made them who they are. Giving back these modesty lessons thus helps me to become greater, and, when I reflect upon the process of giving lessons, to understand just how great I really am becoming. Like, I don't see others giving back this much! Also, because modesty is based on how little you brag are compared to how great you are, these lessons help improve my modesty! And, I'm not a braggert, I'm too good for that. Someone recently noted that I was modest about (yet) another great achievement, and noted that perhaps my lessons had helped me be more modest. Just one comment: Of course they have! These lessons, both giving and taking, have influenced my teaching. I used to put deliberate mistakes into my lectures so that students could see that even a (great) professor can make mistakes and that there are way to correct these mistakes (I became very good at this). But, based on these lessons and with additional practice, I now no longer have to try to make mistakes; they now seem to happen naturally. In any case, I've learned a lot from preparing these notes, perhaps not as much as you will be able to get out of them because there is more for you to get, I am forced to assume that you have more potential for modesty than I have (but I'm probably being modest), but I do hope you find them useful in your pursuit of becoming the second most modest person. Because, realistically, that is the best I can hope for you. This process and accomplishment has led to problems, however. Everybody hates me now because I'm so universally liked because of my modesty. I'm working on understanding and correcting this situation. ========= On the other hand, I am not humble. Humble is both more direct and without a note about greatness. President Jimmy Carter is genuinely humble, and I won't go further because I genuinely respect his style.