I once regarded humility as a great virtue, but this only got me hurt by those willing to take advantage of my modesty.
I then regarded pride as a great virtue, but pride leads to self-deception.
Both are, in fact, dangerous because both prevent you from seeing oneself honestly. I henceforth vow to live only according to objective truth, neither giving in to self-abasing humility nor to self-delusional pride. Only the empty mind can comprehend the self and the universe.

6236992

Only the empty mind can comprehend the self and the universe.

An "empty" mind is one lacking either content (knowledge) or thought (dead). Neither are conducive to comprehension. You're going to have to justify what you mean, otherwise it sounds like bullshit.

The rest sounds fine. It's an overly elaborate way of saying "I prefer moderation and critical thinking."

6237005
Empty of preconceived notions, seeing things as they really are.

6237013
Preconceived notions which are themselves objectively true do not interfere with seeing things as they really are. Some are in fact necessary to seeing things as they really are. Some aspects of reality do not conform to intuitive perception/reception. Also, our human perceptions are very biased due to our evolution, and often interfere with proper evaluation of reality.

"Preconceived notions" when they are foundational education and training are necessary for understanding both the self and the universe.

Just like your advocacy for moderation/critical thinking in terms of pride/humility, you may want to apply it also to the rest of your statement.

6237023
Good points.

6236992
This sounds to me to take a cynical view of the world. And although I am indeed much of a cynic myself, I think we often need to hear that advice and even trust the encouragement of those who are removed from our own situations.

I believe there is a proper happy medium I think between pride and humility. Pride itself is not an abasing thing. It is simply to reassure ourselves of our accomplishments. It is not only unobjectionable, but also necessary to remind ourselves of the worth of our own accomplishments. Experience has taught me that to solely allow ourselves to look ahead is an unsustainable lifestyle. We must at some point consider that at some level we have become great persons of value. Only then in this solid ground can we hope to find value and meaning in our future goals.

The only danger that we must be wary of is allowing pride to become vanity, and there is a line between the two. It is only when we allow ourselves to focus principally on our accomplishments and our self-worth and lose sight of what is ahead and what dangers may lurk in the present that we become vulnerable. That is where humility comes into play.

Humility is valuable in the moral sense because it is the bit and reigns that we set on our nature: it reminds us that while we are worthwhile beings, we should not consider ourselves intrinsically more worthy than the next person who is sincere in their deeds. But humility is also virtuous to us in terms of its shrewdness. Properly executed, humility should not be self-abasing, but vigilant: it is to understand that there are men and women who have the capacity to be more useful and more powerful than ourselves.

6237023
As aptly alluded to by Cryosite, answering this question does raise epistemological concerns. I would, however, would disagree with them on the epistemic conclusions drawn from an evolutionary account. I do not think it is appropriate to imply such a powerful bifurcation between the subjective and the objective. Modern philosophy seems to be all the rage these days, and the focus is on the “objective” truth. The suggestion here is that if we acknowledge our biases and focus only on what we and others have observed, then we can discard the models that our subjective minds have built. The problem with this is that it fails to point out that no matter how careful we are in eliminating biases, still we will always view the real world through the subjective lens of experience. Every conclusion we make will be based on subjective analyses. To cast doubt on the subjective, therefore, is itself a conclusion built on subjective grounds.

For this reason, admitting a healthy degree of skepticism, it seems to me that we ought to trust our subjective experience until we have some defeater therefor. By this reasoning then, I think that you should go by how things appear until you are given reason to think otherwise, but that until you have a trust in any perception, you sure make sure that the perception has been appropriately grounded in firm experience.

6239502
I thought humility meant self-abasing.

6240159
Though “humiliation” and “humility” come from the same root, they often have very different meanings because of how they are used. Humility from a self-aware sense, I think, is the virtue of recognizing one’s own limitations in respect to others. If you are humiliated, you are made to be humble; and this is negative. But to humble yourself is positive, as long as it is done in the proper mindset.

6240185
That makes sense.