How’s your self-esteem? On a scale of one to ten, one being cringing, ten crowing…

I’ve always envied the cocksure. It’s wrong, of course, to be so convinced of one’s worth, but how pleasant! When Trump extols his performance as “perfect,” no matter how calamitous, I gawk: “He’s kidding, right? – just talking – overcompensating.” My self-grading system extends from better to worse “all things considered,” but perfect?

Self-esteem does not correlate with intellect, capacity or accomplishment. Geniuses can loathe themselves and dufuses swagger. (I never wrote that word “dufus” before. Turns out, per my OED, the word’s younger than I, first sighted in in 1965, of uncertain origin. Its dictionary entry includes this sentence: “Compare earlier dowfart n. Compare also the first syllable of doodad n., doohickey n., doojigger n.” Poetry when you least expect it.)

My self-esteem ranks close to zero. Approaching my exit I can admit that. Though raised to be proud – of nationality, family, alma maters, report cards, you name it – I never got the joke. My self-assessment more nearly matches the psalmist’s:

Only one couldn’t embarrass oneself by saying so. Real men stood tall.

I attribute my low self-esteem to my parents. (Parents are so easy to blame!) I can’t recall one word of commendation from my dad, though we cohabited earth for sixteen years. His parents weren’t generous with compliments either, so he passed his anxiety along. After Mom’s funeral (she was in her nineties), one of her pals told me, “She was so proud of you.” I struggled to hold my tongue: why had she never said so?

I hope I gave my kids more encouragement – you’ll have to ask them. I meant to – but thinking so is useless unless you say so. Our grandkids we lavish with encomia (amply deserved!). That’s a grandparental duty: to praise to the skies.

It’s a fair question which is preferable, higher or lower self-esteem. Ideally, one’s self-assessment should be just, but that’s tricky until your results are in. Historians still hotly debate the stature of, say, a Napoleon or Thomas Jefferson. Were these paragons right to be proud? Or perhaps their pride masked self-contempt? (Absent a confession, it’s hard to be sure.)

On balance, I’m in favor of self-hatred. Sure, it hurts, but it keeps you on your toes. That psalmist had plenty to do to get back into God’s graces. My low self-esteem may make relaxation impossible, but it keeps me chugging like “the little engine that could” of storybook legend. (I am chugging now.)

I can’t help wondering if God was pleased with His result. The author of Genesis has no doubt: on each of Creation’s first six days, God adjudges His output “good,” and the seventh, when He makes man, He pronounces “very good.” I reread the passage incredulous: mankind a masterpiece? That’s like Trump insisting his famous shakedown call with Ukraine’s Zelensky was “perfect.” The God I know grieves at His botched attempt. Maybe, He sighs, He did better with dinosaurs.

The right amount of self-esteem is (to take refuge in a tautology) the right amount: enough to encourage but not enough to delude. I doubt any makers worth their salt ever rated their performances “perfect.” Sure, King Lear and the Goldberg Variations had their good points – Shakespeare and Bach, respectively, were glad to have produced them – but perfect? Only lunatics deem their performances perfect. Such lunatics in power are dangerous.