The pretense of knowledge prevents us from getting any better
We don’t like thinking that someone is better than us. Or that we have a lot left to learn. We want to be done. We want to be ready. We’re busy and overburdened. For this reason, updating your appraisal of your talents in a downward direction is one of the most difficult things to do in life – but it is almost always a component of mastery. The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.
Your example
It seems that there is a very specific area in the brain which could be called poetic memory and which records what has charmed us, what has moved us, what gives our life its beauty.
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity... It is, in short, the subject of the history of the Grail. Only a predestined being has the ability to ask another: what is your torment? And he doesn't have it when he enters life. He has to go through years of dark night.
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Source: Letter to the poet Joë Bousquet, 1942
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
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Source : LIFE magasine, May 2, 1955
Almost everyone in the world is self-absorbed within themselves. They regard themselves as the most important beings. People rarely speak bad about themselves. They are the heroes in their own story no matter how much entanglement of lies and bullshit is needed to achieve a gratifying and satisfying version of the tale.
By observing their actions, you could trace back their thought pattern, intentions, interest, and vision. Stop for a moment and analyze the action. Stop caring about what they say, what they think about how the world should be, how everyone can execute their best, or why the world is so messed up. They speak whatever hell it takes to sound amazing. Listen to their actions. Listen only and only to their actions.
We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.