Few thoughts more for what it is worth, not all mine, while about people and ego.
Aai used to say "people criticise Napoleon to say he had an ego, but who deserves it if not him, the average clerk?" That was her way of putting it, about relating accomplishments to ego. I am not sure who she had in mind, but likely it was about various women (mrs a, kgb, ...) saying this about her, and most of those women were far from free of ego as a matter of fact. No one is, unless really very highly achieved in spiritual realm. So it is really about whose ego one may tolerate or excuse or not mind, partly based on mutual behaviour and expectations.
Later at TIFR the place was full of intellectual giants and more so in numbers if not in height at Boston what with Harvard, MIT, Brandeis and visitors from around the world. So I am not merely used to it, but have a different view.
One might wish to be the tallest and everyone look up to one, but then one is looking down, and on a flat plain with shrubs around. Or one could like to look up and be surrounded by high peaks, and this is necessary if one wishes to climb up. Few take off like a rocket from a plain. And even in a flat plain I love to have tall trees shade me and distant mountain peaks in view, if not closer. Literally as much as in human terms.
Once in Boston there was an opportunity of attending a high level course in my subject, and I tried for a while. This professor was highly regarded and elderly. He rarely taught, so it was very attractive to try. But I had six courses that semester and thesis work, so gave up most one after another. Anyway around the beginning a colleague remarked that he thought this professor was arrogant. I did not think that, I thought he was like an old sage of ancient India (he was not Indian although Asian), and said he had achievements enough to justify any arrogance or ego, and I did not think he misbehaved or was rude personally. Later I had a one on one conversation with the professor before dropping out and was completely thrilled with it, nothing to do with me, it was about his work. I would be pleased if he did not think very low of me, but if he did it probably would be objective and not personal and certainly not malicious, and therefore would not bother me except perhaps to wish I were better, and at that usually one can try balancing between trying to be better and accepting one's limits.
People usually don't compete on bases they understand or grant - most would allow that wealthy, famous and powerful are above. Beauty might invoke jealousy and hatred, and accusations of ridiculous sort, but I am used to high levels of beauty and take them for granted while not requiring as a condition of any contact, except of heart - a sincere person is valuable. And if one wishes examples of how malice may destroy beauty, examples galore in various films and television shows - from family films of few decades ago to Keya Patar Nouko more recently.
The less measurable things are of mind, heart and soul, and here is where people can be arbitrary, which is why the caste related castigating is usually vicious against one and only one caste and that too in India, while other high castes of India and elsewhere get away with every horrible behaviour and not merely ego, because people recognise wealth, fame and power and bow to those.
Aajie often said, one can pretend anything but money. Her words are precious in several ways, one small factor being her language. Her turns of phrase.
The other part in all this is about interaction. The colleague who criticised the professor once asked what I thougth of myself, and I said that was none of his or anyone else's business as long as I was civil in interaction. I don't ask what he thinks of himself and don't care, but it matters if he is civil or not, I further said.
Later I read about Audrey Hepburn being told by her mother when she was a teenager "it does not matter how you feel, it matters how you behave" - this was aristocracy of Europe and this dictum matches the best first rules of civil interaction.
Once in Germany our language teacher said something about how Germans feel, and I told her (taking extreme examples to make it clear) "it is ok if they don't want to marry non-Germans, we don't want to marry you either, but being courteous in social interactions is necessary for civil discourse" - she was quite startled that others might not be lusting after them, a completely new thought!
Recently I was attacked on internet by someone who has no idea what or who I am, and the points where it stuck was related to this - he was about indicting India in general and us in particular on an issue where guilt belongs really to others just as well if not more, and India has been victimised with a particular group targeted for aim of destruction of India, a policy, thought up by Macaulay and set in writing and published (how else would I know?) and adopted by the British empire after 1857 to avoid all possible risk of losing India.
So this person ignored all wider perspectives and more that I set forth, and went on repeating the attacks set up by that policy on India, and made very personal attacks. When pointed out that he was ignoring a wider perspective even within India, he further became vicious and wanted to know why I suddenly found love for the others I was pointing at. I stopped this only by declaring I was going to ignore him, and did, although his poison continued.
None of what I said was particularly my invention or discovery except for myself, that is, others might and must have known all of that, but most now are afraid to say it except in private secure surroundings. I wrote it up again and saved it as a note.
And I refused to defend against the attack from him, because it was no use - it would be pathetic trying to declare how one is good. Especially to those only interested in attacking until one is silent, whether alive or dead.
Gajanan Kaka once related a conversation he had with his cousin and said, quoting what he had told the cousin, that it was not of much use telling someone something that person was unwilling to hear. This was not as obvious as might seem, and that part was clear immediately.
