a place of arrival and departure

growth beyond ego and fear

WHETHER YOU begin the journey of growth beyond ego in your early twenties (sooner if ego-based mind-bending wasn't the premier goal in our schools) or when you embrace your mid-life crisis, you will need courage. Some of you will have to learn to be honest again-- speaking from the heart instead of the "I'm okay - you're okay" charade americans especially love to play and expect ("how are you - great!" is just linguistic code for "my ego-image is just fine and I won't mess with yours if you play the game too...") . Becoming honest with yourself may be the most difficult task. As a nation of ego-driven addicts (no substance abuse required-- we americans abuse our fellow humans and the planet daily)-- driven to the point of eye-glaze in compulsive consumption, greed, and image-adoption (ever notice that all of our "role models" are now film and television actors?), denial is a way of life.

DENIAL IS the most insidious form of dishonesty. It finds lesser scapegoats for the larger sins that we don't wish to admit to ourselves. We are obsessed with second-hand cigarette smoke while we ignore the exhaust emmissions of millions of motor vehicles and trade in factory air-polllution as commodities, because if it makes money (feeding our addiction) we'll let it pass. And if you quit smoking your ego feels so much holier as you dodge the second-hand bullets of the economically hopeless, and watch that trainload of nuclear waste rolling past your home in the middle of the night.
DENIAL IS INSANITY. It constructs elaborate webs of lies to conceal from yourself the destructive nature of your true priorities-- just as alcoholics or wife-batterers have gut- wrenching excuses (it's never their fault) for the trails of wreckage they leave in wide white-water wakes behind them.
EVERY SINGLE thing wrong or in imbalance on this planet is due to ego, self-will-run-riot, greed, manipluation and fear. We are phonies ecomically screwing our brothers and sisters so a few of us can accumulate enough wealth to feel "happy" and "secure". Happiness is a foolish thought for people who don't know who they are or understand the true motivations and consequences of their actions. Security in human life is non-existent-- the only true certainty is change. Life is what happens to the plans you've made.
MUCH OF our ego-sickness is due to a deliberate, continual, and all-pervasive propaganda barrage designed by our political and business leaders to keep us forever insecure while holding out to us the carrot of great security through wealth (and their continued leadership, of course). Any form of ego-driven life makes us easily-manipulated slaves. So in addition to rediscovering our true selves, our gifts, vocations and missions, we will need to learn the wisdom of insecurity.
THE BOOK of exactly that title, by the highly-readable Alan Watts was a profound influence in my early adult years. The fundamental premise is, of course, that a life devoted to acquiring and holding the means to "security" is absurd because it is based on fear of loss-- and the market can crash (and does) or you can die or lose you health (and you will) at any moment. If one's primary goals are attaining security and defending it against loss, how much of your life will you spend spontaneously living it now?
FEAR IS the key to the ego-driven society. We get a single message in an overwhelming torrent-- do what they want you to do (give 'em the money!!!) and buy that BMW or vote for that lying SOB and be sexy, powerful, admired and in, or risk being so socially undesireable they may not only avoid you, not employ you and let you starve and/or go without medical care-- they may even frame you, send you to "trial" for anti-government activity (after the media has totally assassinated your character), convict you, and maybe even kill you.
WE NEED to fight this, of course, but we can't do this singly as individuals-- and we deal with a society in which the very language of interpersonal relations is fear-based, status- conscious, defensive or aggressive. In his book The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield discusses attention- seeking power theft, and the personal control dramas we are accustomed to using (learned through our up-bringing) as both defensive armor and attention-getting posturing. He also suggests we learn to recognize the different types (intimidator, victim, aloof, etc.) and try to de-fuse the fear that motivates this controlling behavior, then take the next step of relating our true selves to each other, passing power around if the situation warrants.
LIFE CANNOT be controlled. Security is an illusion. Your manipulative plastic "personality" is a fake and your life is a stupid ego- driven dance which you hope will please others who you hope will reward a you who isn't you and doesn't know who you are. Time to let ego fall away and scoff at fear-- it isn't your fear anyway-- it's their means of controlling you. If you feel a need for fear in your life, fear not being able to say "today is a good day to die". The man who can honestly say that has lived each of his days to the fullest.
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