Nobility

Nobility is a curious concept. Time was, human beings had to be born into a certain social class to even have the opportunity of being considered noble. Being thought of as noble had nothing to do with the sort of person you were. It was all a matter of who your parents were, something you had no say in.
In fact, real nobility goes along with other character traits traditionally considered desirable, such as courage, selflessness and anonymous generosity. When I was in college, I had a professor who defined nobility as, “being willing to fight the good fight, even though you know you’re going to lose.” I rather like that definition.
I’m not sure I know much about nobility, firsthand. I’ve never had to be terribly noble. Never faced very much in the way of personal adversity, at least not adversity that I didn’t get myself into in the first place.
I’ve witnessed nobility, though. I’ve seen people face impossible odds and stand up to dreadful situations they have no hope of overcoming and struggle against them anyway, without complaint. Actually I witness this kind of nobility on a daily basis, even though in the larger scheme of things this type of behavior is very rare indeed
Also, I’ve seen people who seemed to lack even a hint of nobility, people who fold like a cheap wallet under the least amount of pressure, people who blame anyone and everyone else when something goes wrong, people who are more eager to assign blame for a problem than to become part of a solution, and are utterly unable to accept responsibility for their own actions.. Apparently, we will never lack for people of this sort.
I’ve seen people who entirely avoid the possibility of having to be noble. This is actually pretty easy to do. If you have no regard for anything or anyone, in other words if you have no self respect, there is very little chance you will have to sacrifice anything or bear a burden or experience a sense of loss. This makes for a fairly uncomplicated, albeit shallow, life.
Then, of course, there are those who are so self-absorbed they can’t imagine anything being more important than what they want at the moment. Their priorities tend to change with the direction of the wind. These folks can be properly identified as ignoble, the antithesis of nobility.
Thinking back over your life, gentle readers, the odds are you remember someone who stands out as an example of nobility in action, someone you admired and wanted to be like, but you palled at matching their level of self-sacrifice. In the long run, I suppose there is an iota of nobility in the worst of us, and a speck of ignobility in the best of us.