Hillsong Magic show

I did a performance for Hillsong in Baulkham hills last Sunday, for a World's Greatest Showman themed show. The MC introduced me to the audience as "The Greatest Magician in the Southern Hemisphere". This made me feel uncomfortable but not because I am particularly modest. I love to have my ego stroked, If anyone wants to tell me I'm amazing, I'm very happy to hear it. My concern is rather whether the audience actually believed the very bold claims made by the host. Exaggeration is obviously almost a universal aspect of marketing and show-business and I don't have any moral objections to this. Do what you need to do to make a living. However, surely the vast majority of people are so desensitised and overexposed to this sort of hyperbole that they are highly cynical about such claims. If people don't really believe what these promotions are saying, why do people market their products or services this way? My website doesn't make any claims that I am 'the best magician in Sydney' or Australia as I don't think this has any meaningful impact on how people perceive the value of my work. Considering almost every magician's website in this city says they are 'Sydney's leading magician', how can anyone possibly believe that all these performer's are all the "the best". On the other hand, I do believe confidence is a very important for making a sale. Perhaps we should place great value on our own work without denying the inevitable faults and imperfections that all human beings have in their characters. I love myself, but I think everybody else should also, as long as you are a good person who wants to make a meaningful contribution to society. This is not narcissism, it is humanism. Maybe my magic is better than some other magicians but I pretty much always have a very limited capacity to assess the various advantages and disadvantages each person has experienced and the variety of potential barriers that might exist to their education and training. Each person's level of achievement must always be measured in relation to the incredibly complex environment that created their character and the immense network of relationships they have with the rest of their species. For example the same Atar mark of 55 could be interpreted as impressive or pitiful depending on the circumstances. If a teenager grew up with abusive negligent parents who never pressured them to study nor took any interest in their child's achievements, a mark of 55 could be considered as incredible. On the other hand, an adolescent raised in a well off, middle class family with parents who provided a lot of love and support, this mark would be just pathetic. I think in reality, people's lives and our relationships are always much more complex than the very simplistic examples I just gave. Our relationships with our parents are obviously just one of many that can influence the development of our character. We very rarely have the time to gain a high level of understanding about the life stories of the people around us and meaningfully judge their level of achievement. However, I do believe that all human beings are very intelligent and have their own strengths, if they have the opportunity and motivation to learn. When you consider how ignorant we are about the people around us and how dependent we are on each other for our various specialised skills and expertise, I believe the only reasonable attitude to have towards the rest of the human race is to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are valuable.