Is there no wind in Germany?

Being in San Andrés trying to get a project underway with limited institutional support has confronted me anew with the importance of being able to sell an idea, even if you aren't yet fully sold on it yourself. Confidence is contagious and spreading it at the get-go is often what makes projects successful. 

Here's hoping that turning 30 brings a bit of extra confidence and calmness. 

In Germany the US is known as a place where everyone is adept at selling herself. We are believed to imbibe (over)confidence with our mothers' milk. A German acquaintance once told me, "Yeah, that's why the US produces so many good actors, because everyone learns to be an actor in mastering his daily life."

In my opinion (over)confidence is not a matter of culture, but seems often to exist in inverse proportion to ability. As in: the more you know, the less you think you know. And vice versa.

I related a while back in a story about buying a compact fluorescent light bulb, in which I was assured by a store employee that I didn't need to test it before buying it, because it didn't rattle when shaken. His salesman savvy was incongruous with his peach fuzz goatee and poor information. Another example was related to me in a talk by Pat Mooney, a Canadian environmental activist from the ETC Group. Upon visiting an experimental plot of the Amflora GM potato, a researcher giving him a tour proudly cited a chest-high fence around the field as complying with a court issued requirement to protect other fields from contamination. Pat Mooney quipped, "Is there no wind in Germany?" But it didn't seem to shake the woman's confident air. Or, finally, how about those Wall Street CEOs who still "strut around Congress"?

It is stories like that that make me recall this passage from Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers:

O ein Bissgen leichteres Blut würde mich zum glücklichsten Menschen unter der Sonne machen. Was! Da wo andere, mit ihrem Bissgen Kraft und Talent, vor mir in behaglicher Selbstgefälligkeit herum schwadronieren, verzweifl' ich an meiner Kraft, an meinen Gaben. Guter Gott! der du mir das alles schenktest, warum hieltest du nicht die Hälfte zurück und gabst mir Selbstvertrauen und Genügsamkeit!

Loosely translated: "A little lighter heart would make me the happiest man under the sun. I see fools bask in self-admiration while I cast doubt on my strength, my talents. Oh Lord, Thou who bestowed these gifts upon me, why didn't you keep the better part of it and give me guts and peace of mind instead!"