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The coat of many colours

“I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly; “let the other be where he may.” So says one of the unforgettable characters in Dickens’ David Copperfield.

I have always associated false humility with that type of statement: how can one acknowledge their own humility without stepping outside of its parameters and creating a paradox? Does humility dissolve once it is self-asserted? Or, is it one of those qualities that requires someone else to notice, and you to deny for it to be tenable? Do you, in other words, have to repudiate your own virtues and be dishonest with yourself to be humble; be conscious of your own worthiness, and then falsely deny it to others? That doesn’t seem right, either.

I get lost in the labyrinth of combinations and permutations that humility involves, but you have to admit that it is fascinating: how can you be knowledgeable, helpful, and reassuring, without a hint of pride? Indeed, why is humility so endearing, and boastfulness so… insensitive?

I have never thought of myself as humble, nor has anybody accused me of it, I don’t think. But, isn’t that sort of a double negative? I mean, if it is not quite on the horizon, so to speak, does that suggest a kind of incipient humility? A dawn? Perhaps by not thinking about it, by neither doing ourselves the injustice of belittling our good qualities, nor publicizing them, we arrive where Goldilocks left off in the three bear’s house and are able to eat the ‘just right’ porridge… Or did she herself get eaten…?  Some outcomes are hazy when you get old.

Other things have a longer shelf life, though. I remember going to a lecture on assertiveness when I was young and looking for a summer job to offset the financial burden of a university education. My parents were bearing the brunt of the cost, of course, but I found myself bucking the wishes of a determined mother who felt my undergrad degree should be the prelude to Medical School, rather than a career in Journalism, or even a doorway to a doctorate in Philosophy as I had hoped. I thought perhaps assertiveness training might add to my summer job prospects, maintain her good will, and with luck, might let me sit beside some shy, easygoing girl in the audience. Okay when I was young, hope, if not assertiveness sprang eternal.

In retrospect, I suppose the lecture was carefully choreographed, but the lecturer made more of an impression on me than the five or six women -all accompanied by milquetoasts- in the rather sparse audience.

It was scheduled for 1900 hours sharp the advertisement had emphasized, because the speaker apparently had another lecture to give at 2100 hours at another school. I think that the publication of the event in 24 hour ‘military time’ as it was called in those days, was like a homework assignment to make us try to figure out unusual things for ourselves.

At any rate, we were all quietly seated in a small classroom 5 or 10 minutes early; the whispers didn’t start until around half an hour later. People began checking their watches and verifying the time in hushed voices with their neighbours -but politely, not yet assertively. Perhaps the speaker had got his lectures mixed up, so we were all Canadian about it: apart from a few gentle sighs, nobody complained.

Then, at a calculated 1927 hours on my admittedly standard, 12-numbered watch, a short, thin man in his mid 30ies wandered in and stood at the front of the class. He was dressed in a rather wrinkled brown sports jacket that hardly reached his hips, blue jeans rolled up at the cuffs to make them fit, and an untucked greenish tee shirt with an unreadable logo peeking out from his waist.

He just stood there for a minute or two, saying nothing, explaining nothing, but surveying the meagre crowd with an enigmatic smile glued to his face. In fact, only a question from a puzzled looking woman in the front seat seemed to rouse him from his torpor.

“Are you the lecturer?” she asked, clearly uncertain whether it was her place to speak.

The smile dropped off his face like mud, drying on a wall. He checked his wristwatch as if perhaps he had wandered into the wrong room, and then looked her in the eyes. “This is the assertiveness lecture… correct?”

There was a murmur of assent in the room.

“Good,” he said. “I wondered if I was in the wrong room.”

A young man sitting beside the inquisitive woman, shook his head aggressively. “You’re late!”

The lecturer blinked once and looked around the room for a moment. “Was that an assertive response…? His eyes scanned the crowd for an answer; then, hearing nothing, shrugged indifferently. “I think it was rather aggressive; hostile, not assertive…”

A woman sitting near the back spoke up. “So, who are you? Shouldn’t you at least identify yourself?”

A sudden smile lit up his face. “My name is Jacob. And thank you; that’s an assertive question.” He looked around the room again.

Some heads nodded at that, the contrast now becoming more obvious to them.

“But,” Jacob continued, “assertiveness is not a laurel wreath awarded for being dominant…” he sent his eyes to rest on the cheeks of the aggressive young man who’d first spoken up. “Nor does it contain more than a hint of humility for which we would expect to be noticed.” Once again, he scanned the audience looking relaxed and comfortable, as if everything was going to plan. “Like baby bear’s porridge in the children’s story, assertiveness lies somewhere in the middle of the choices on offer.

“In fact, to have to name an action as assertive, misses the point. Assertion does not mean that you are always correct, but that you have an opinion which you have reason to believe is accurate. And, the opinion requires that you avoid certainty, because there is always the possibility that your beliefs are mistaken.”

I don’t remember much else from the lecture and I never told my parents about it, but I do remember that it changed how I approached the next discussion I had with my mother about university. What would likely determine the career I ended up with, I pointed out, would be my marks. Of course she tut-tutted that: her boy was smart enough to get into Medical School. But I just smiled. This was the beginning of the 1960ies and I reminded her of the song Doris Day had popularized: Que Sera, Sera: a blend of assertion with a hint of humility. I think she understood…

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