Edit: My personal interpretation is this: It is very difficult for a man to sit on the sidelines and watch another man do things. And yet that is what every journalist has to go through. While others are doing things and changing things, he is merely sitting there and commenting. While the other is the artist, he is the mere critic. While the other seems to have power of a nature, all the critic seems to have is power over people’s opinions. Now, if such a person focused on the greater whole, he would still be able to find purpose in what he is doing. After all, we need good journalism. But if he is focused on his own ego, the act of comparing himself to the person he is writing about will make him bitter and resentful. He will feel as though he is standing in the shadows of this other person. As if, if he could only make this other person smaller, he himself would become bigger. That the very act of comparing himself to another person and trying to derive his sense of self-worth from such a comparison is itself what makes him feel small doesn’t even occur to him.