LESS EGO / MORE SOUL

I’ve been reading A New Earth. It’s by Eckhart Tolle and all about controlling the ego. This has been an interesting trip for me, learning about this and watching my own ego come out to play.

I find it comes out mostly when I am with people I don’t know so well – I’ll try and shape my own perspective to meet theirs. In this mode I tend to end up missing the mark altogether- portraying neither ‘who I am’ nor the image my ego wishes to portray.

I get the whole “if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all” and I’m generally not one to gossip, but I guess sometimes I worry that if I don’t contribute to the conversation, or that if I were to cut out all the relaying of things I’ve done/things I want to do I’d be left with little to say…and that people might think I am boring…

That’s the whole thing about ego; you gotta let go of how you think other’s will perceive you.

Image.

Get over it.

Though, something I have been thinking hard about:
Where is the line drawn; between ego and self-expression?

Storytelling for example:
Sometimes I tell stories because my ego gets the best of me; I want to show off.
Sometimes I tell stories because I think they illustrate a point.
Sometimes I tell stories because I just want to express why/how I am feeling.
Sometimes I tell stories to simply share the human condition & connect.

Tolle talks about not trying to stand out.
And I’ll admit, sometimes I purposely do things to stand out in a crowd – call it my ‘individuality complex’. You see I’m just not one to settle for mediocrity. To do what everyone around me is doing seems just plain boring to me.

I guess the reality is, most of as are so absorbed in what others could be thinking about us that we often don’t remember what others are doing.

I just…I don’t know…I thought I’d share this with you because it’s inspired me…

I’m copying this straight out of a uni thing I did so bear with me…

One thing that I have had to consider as an environmentalist wanting to work in the advertising industry is how to act when given an account to work on that I don’t really agree with.

I remember hearing a story about a creative who got an account from Mc Donald’s.

While she wasn’t a fan of Mc Donald’s either she was still required to come up with an idea to promote the company. To compromise, she put forward that Mc Donald’s should only purchase and sell fair trade coffee. This was a very successful point of difference at the time as the idea of fair trade coffee was still new. And, because McDonalds is such a huge corporation, she was able to channel it’s buying power into a more environmentally positive direction. In addition, since this campaign many other large corporations such as Starbucks and Nestle have too decided to sell only fair-trade coffee in response to competition.

That to me is a perfect example of how I wish to be entrepreneurial in what I do. This woman could have rejected the account. But that would have done nothing – it would have been passed on to the next creative and the world would continue to consume Mc Donald’s. Instead she took the account as an opportunity to make a positive difference.

That leads me back to the saying: “you have to be in it a little to change it”.

I escaped.
Went to the country.
Just me and my K9
Quiet…nature…space

I faced my fears
Of spiders and snakes
Of the world after dark
The sounds of creatures of the night
My fears of the unkown

I filled my pockets with ma-ca-dam-bia nuts
Beat my drum,
Danced barefoot in the forest…
Naked.

Read books,
Pondered life
Remembered:
There’s no need to
be
or do
ANYTHING.

Each night I created fire
“Man’s first magic”

Upon the damp grass,
Listening to music
I lay beneath the stary sky
In wonder and amusement

Thismorning I explored the outback like I was the only person alive…
Just me and the wind.
And so many butterflies…

The take home message
gifted by my island

Is that nothing really matters.

We give meaning to all the objects and experiences we come into contact with.
Much more meaning than any object or event truly deserves.

We label, categorize and justify, creating our reality.
But we are not objects.
Lest we forget.

We are consciousness

The space between objects.

The breath between thought.

The realized present moment.

Now.

We can’t define ourselves,
Hard as we try.
Nor should we.

“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.

As Buddhists say: the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.

Likewise: “Thought [and word] can at best point to the truth, but it never is the truth.”

- A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

‘Normal’ means something usually done. ‘Natural’ is how you are when you’re not trying to be “normal”! Natural and normal are not the same thing. In any given moment you can do what you normally do, or you can do what comes naturally. I tell you this: Nothing is more natural than love. If you act lovingly, you will be acting naturally. If you react fearfully, resentful, angrily, you may be acting normally, but you will never be acting naturally.

Conversations With God, Book II pg.19

I wanna act naturally.

Screw normalcy!

Be true to thyself.

I remember once, in primary school on a school camp. There was a black out and a lot of the other kids started to cry because they were scared in the dark.

I wasn’t afraid, but I was a little confused at their reactions. To fit in I licked my hands and rubbed my eyes hoping that when the lights came back on it would look like I had been crying too. I wanted to appear “normal” so I pretended to be scared.

How absurd!

Yet to fit in is to act normal.  Being  honest and acting upon your own internal desires, on the other hand, often implies being different. And while for some people and in some situations, being different is the goal, in the mundane day-to-day life being different is often considered embarrassing.

In my life now though, I’m pushing to “embarrass myself”. Because I’ve found that doing what I want to do, acting how I want to act, is far more satisfying than the facade of fitting in…

(c) Isaac Brest

There seems to come a point in life where we stop acting based on our own individual instincts and desires. Instead, we act in favour of doing what other people tell you us we should be doing. We are taught “right” from “wrong” and taught to feel guilty, shameful and/or embarrassed in certain situations. We lose touch with our own natural instincts.

When a child is born they do not know what it is to feel shame or guilt feelings – feeling self-conscious is completely foreign. They live in their own world of mysteries, adventure and joy.

Up until we tell their malleable little minds otherwise, to be naked is to be free; not embarrassing.
Freedom of expression vs justification

Then, in comes this concept of justification – that we need to have a reason for doing something – that feeling an urge to express a particular part of oneself is not enough on it’s own. Before we do something, we often feel a need to come up with a socially reasonable explanation. Until then, we tend put off the experiences we are really craving.

[I heard a man say last night when asked if he ever did sculptures as a form of art:
"No, never wasted time with that art stuff - everything has got to serve a purpose." Really?]

Perceptions and interpretations – the paradigm filter

Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve observed as part of the human condition is that every one has an entirely unique life experience. Not just in terms of the actual events and memories that one accumulates through living, but, also the ways in which we perceive and interpret the world around us.

Based on our own personal experiences we see the world through the filter of a paradigm. This is why our world is not black & white, but colored. This is why there is no such thing as “right” or “wrong” as society likes to classify things. We all have different definitions/moral and ethical codes which are based upon our own individual paradigm. As is so, we could never really agree on a generic one-size-fits-all answer. For this reason, there is no point in judging another’s choices or listening to other’s judgements of your own actions.

Sure, it might be easier for someone to tell you what is right or wrong, but I think life is much more fun when you actually take the time to work that out for yourself. Life experience is a great teacher.

A tutor of mine once made a good point – for those who believe they are not blessed with the gift of creativity:

“We are ALL creative.
Truth.
You know how I know this?
Look at any child…
No matter where they are they are able to create a whole universe of fun around them.
They use their imagination to see beyond the mundane.
They  are open, seeing things we only deny because we’ve forgotten how to see them;
where to look; how to believe.”

“Once there was a rock filled with countless atoms, protons, neutrons, and subatomic particles of matter.

These particles were racing around continually, in a pattern, each particle going from “here” to “there” and taking “time” to do so, yet going so fast that the Rock itself seemed to move not at all.

It just was. There it lay drinking in the sun, soaking up the rain, and moving not at all.

“What’s this, inside of me, that is moving?” the Rock asked?

“It is you,” said a voice from afar.

“Me?” replied the Rock. “Why, that’s impossible. I am not moving at all. Anyone can see that.”

“Yes, from a distance,” the Voice agreed. ”From way over here you do look as if you are solid, still, not moving. But when I come closer – when I look very closely at what is actually happening — I see that everything that comprises What You Are is moving. It is moving at incredible speed through time and space in a particular pattern which creates You as the thing called “Rock” And so, you are like magic! You are moving and not moving at the same time.”

“But,” asked the Rock, “which, then is the illusion? The oneness, the stillness, of the Rock, or the separateness and the movement of it’s parts?”

To which the voice replied, “Which, then is the illusion, The oneness, the stillness, of God? Or the separateness and movement of its parts?”

+++

Life is a series of minute, incredibly rapid movements. These movements do not affect at all the immobility and the Beingness of Everything That Is. Yet, just as with the atoms of the rock, it is the movement which is creating the stillness, right before your eyes.

From a distance, there is no separateness. There cannot be, for All That Is  is All There Is and there is nothing else.

From the limited perspective with which you view All That Is, you see yourself as separate and apart, not one unmovable being, but many, many beings, constantly in motion.

Both observations are accurate.

Both realities are “real”.

The Parable of the Rock – Conversations with God book III, pg. 63