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Can you give me an example of something that you are proud of, that everyone else can also do? The only stuff I can think of would be a depressed person managing to get out of bed in the morning and cleaning their trash or something. But what about everyone else?
Cooking. It's not hard to do, almost everyone can cook to some extent. But when I cook a dish that is challenging (for me), I'm proud of it no matter how easy it would be for most people.
I don't think most people can cook that well. Everyone can put a frozen pizza in the oven or cook Ramen. But you wouldn't be proud of that. Are you sure that your sense of pride is completely independent of your environment? I would guess that you would feel somewhat less proud if everyone else was a 3* chief. Then, being proud of what would be considered a moderately complex dish today would be equivalent to being proud of cooking Ramen.
Dude, I can manage to burn frozen pizza by getting distracted and forgetting how long I've had it in the oven. Not burning it is legit a source of pride for me. I think you're operating off a different level of how you value achievement; a lot of people just do things for fun, and easy mode on games is one of those fun things. After all, it's just a bloody video game, it's not like curing cancer or brain surgery.
There are games I'd never be able to play, because I'm not good enough, have not been playing for long enough and don't know the etiquette, as it were, and have nowhere near the hand-eye co-ordination needed (particularly as I'm getting older and the first traces of arthritis in the joints are appearing). That's fine, I'm never going to try playing those games anyway. But mass-market games? Why not an easy mode for those who just want to have fun, or who won't be able to get to complete the game without help? What are you losing? You still beat it on Ultra Hardcore Suicide Massacre Mode, you achieved that, you are the champion.
I'm one of those people who like story mode because I'm playing the game to find out the lore and explore the world and wander around (maybe I like plucking all those flowers for the herb garden for the villager side-quest) rather than the grind of following a guide to get the maximum build to power through the maps with the most slaughter. I'm not interested in the body count I rack up! So you enjoy yourself running through like a blazing meteor of death, I'll be pootering around chasing rabbits, and we can both have fun with the game.
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Yes, of course I'm sure. The pride is in the challenge I overcame, not because it makes me better than anyone else.
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Pride doesn't, or at least needn't, depend on your position relative to other people. English is a widely spoken language that doesn't require any special intelligence to learn. I learned it effortlessly as a child. But someone who becomes fluent in English as an adult put in a lot of work and has something to be proud of. To someone who is learning to ski, getting down a black diamond run for the first time without falling is a major accomplishment worthy of pride. Someone who skis regularly might do ten black diamond runs in a day and think nothing of it.
Becoming fluent in another language as an adult is an achievement that not everyone can do though. On the other hand, nobody is proud of learning their mother language because it's expected. It seems to me that this supports my argument. I am not arguing that pride comes solely from comparison with others, just that if basically everyone can do something, it's hard to be proud of doing that thing.
But you can do that thing well, or badly, which I think is part of the point you want to make. Learning to read and speak fluently your native language is an achievement, even if you can get by perfectly well with a level that is ordinary speech.
What your position comes across as is demanding that everyone should speak at the level of a university degree in literature, or else they're just loser time-wasters, and moreover they are devaluing your achievement in attaining fluency. But if everyone can play and win in hard mode, then what is the achievement to be proud of there? You need the lower-level players to contrast yourself with, otherwise "I won on hard mode" becomes the same "so what, are you also boasting about being able to cook a frozen pizza?".
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My point is that it's based on one's own situation, not others. You gave an example in your post of a depressed person doing basic tasks. Another example might be someone who had a stroke learning how to move their right index finger, something almost everyone can do. It is worthy of pride because it's an accomplishment for that person. By contrast, doing something that almost no one can do may not be worthy of pride. If Usain Bolt runs a race faster than 99% of the population could, he still may be quite disappointed with his time and feel no pride at all.
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