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Free to Good Home - one Ego
OK I've come off the fence and admitted that I am taking this seriously so I am going to let you all into a very big secret. I've got an Ego. I've got a massive, enormous, thumping great Ego which is sitting in the middle of my path sneering at me and won't go away.
I'm making gradual progress with other things - I can be mindful for all of ten seconds at a time (right up to the moment when my Ego whispers in my ear "You're getting quite good at this, aren't you?") , I am compassionate (except when people step on my Ego) and I can acutally remember what the Eightfold Path is rather than saying Right Everything and hoping nobody asks me what that means (sidenote from Ego - she's putting the effort in, isn't she?)
But I am constantly swamped by this large, squidgy morass that is my Ego. I decided to do something very worthy the other day and clear up a grievance I've had for a while with a dear person. I thought it would be nice to get it out of the way and start again. What I actually did, of course, was hit this person over the head with my damaged Ego and scream "Look what you did, and I forgive you, you rotten sh*t" - to which I got the reaction I richly deserved.
So, don't bother looking on eBay, it's not for sale, I am giving it away - one large, richly nurtured 49 year old ego, lovingly kept in its pristine condition, highly polished and lovingly cared-for. Not a novice ride, needs careful handling and certainly not bomb-proof but a very loyal friend ................. any takers?
I'm making gradual progress with other things - I can be mindful for all of ten seconds at a time (right up to the moment when my Ego whispers in my ear "You're getting quite good at this, aren't you?") , I am compassionate (except when people step on my Ego) and I can acutally remember what the Eightfold Path is rather than saying Right Everything and hoping nobody asks me what that means (sidenote from Ego - she's putting the effort in, isn't she?)
But I am constantly swamped by this large, squidgy morass that is my Ego. I decided to do something very worthy the other day and clear up a grievance I've had for a while with a dear person. I thought it would be nice to get it out of the way and start again. What I actually did, of course, was hit this person over the head with my damaged Ego and scream "Look what you did, and I forgive you, you rotten sh*t" - to which I got the reaction I richly deserved.
So, don't bother looking on eBay, it's not for sale, I am giving it away - one large, richly nurtured 49 year old ego, lovingly kept in its pristine condition, highly polished and lovingly cared-for. Not a novice ride, needs careful handling and certainly not bomb-proof but a very loyal friend ................. any takers?
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Comments
I am sure this applies to Egos too....
We've all got one which persistently sits upon our shoulders and whispers deviously in our ear... timing their discreet but insistent comments absolutely perfectly, for when our achievements are commendable and when we therefore least expect them..... cunning little things aren't they?
Part of my problem is that I can't real visualise "ego-lessness", I identify so closely with it. Although, that having been said, I'm not sure that I haven't met the sound and the sensation of it, particularly in dance. Perhaps old Gurdjeff was right and dance actually is the way to walk the Noble Eighfold Path.
But I am worried about your giving yours away, Knitwitch! Just think of those people who might want an extra ego! And, after all that work knitting one with such care and afection, why not hang it up in the wardrobe for a season or two. At least there it'll be food for moths.
That way I can have a whole collection of egos in differing sizes for different occasions! I might even be able to make a see-through one which would be good. Especially as I can't dance to save my life!
When I said I can't dance to save my life, Simon, I meant literally can't. When we lived in Brittany, the Old Feller and I were members of a Breton Dance Group and really enjoyed it. Breton dancing involves lots of tiny wee steps and is hell on the legs and bum muscles. One evening, while rehearsing in an unheated sports hall and hadn't had time to warm up, I collapsed with all the calf muscles in one leg ripped - try taking a bit of steak in both hands and pulling it apart, as the physio described it so graphically - I was in plaster and on crutches for weeks. Nowadays I can't dance at all, which is a shame.
Oi - that's normally my job!
I like to think of this "Ego Thing" as being just a sideshow in life, and, at that, it's something rooted "in the past." Maybe some colossal blunder made only five seconds ago, but still in the past. I believe the Ego is Adult baggage, and burdensome only to the degree that you carry it forward when unnecessary. Lots of jobs demand a lot of Ego-power, and I understand that, but outside that, I think that most of us fundamentally find THE ASSERTIVE EGO unattractive both in ourselves and in others.
I think the idea of always striving to be forbearing and kind with one's fellows, and not looking for the faults of others but, rather, for your own, helps achieve a state in which it is easier to cultivate a state of detachment in which we can become freer from thinking about the good we've done or the bad we've done.
I like Rilke's take here:
Alles will schweben. Da gehn wir umher wie Beschwerer,
legen auf alles uns selbst, vom Gewichte entzückt;
o was sind wir den Dingen für zehrende Lehrer,
weil ihnen ewige Kindheit glückt.
Nähme sie einer ins innige Schlafen und schliefe
tiefe mit den Dingen—: o wie käme er leicht,
anders zum anderen Tag, aus der gemeinsamen Tiefe.
Oder er bliebe vielleicht; und sie blühten und priesen
ihn, den Bekehrten, der nun den Ihrigen gleicht,
allen den stillen Geschwistern im Winde der Wiesen.
Sonnets to Orpheus, II,14
All things want to float. And we go about like weights,
lay our self upon everything, delighted with gravity;
O what wearing teachers we are for things,
while they make themselves content with eternal childhood.
If one were to take things into intimate slumber and slept
deeply with them, o how lightly that one would come,
from one day to another, out of the common deep.
Or perhaps that one would stay; and they would bloom and praise
their new convert, who is now like one of them, like all those dear,
quiet companions in the wind of the meadows.
Sonnets to Orpheus, II,14
That's awful, dear Witch! But, take heart: I've found that, when I was really breathless, before my op, I could still dance - by banging my stick! When we join the Tribe of the Elders, we may not be able to leap like the young, but we can unite drum and dance from the safety of our bath-chairs. LOL
We'll be the band instead of the dancers! The band's waaayyy cooler anyway.
Simon,
What's a bath-chair? Is it a chair you put in the bath? Or is it a chair in which you can have a bath (which makes absolutely no sense)? Whatever it is, it sounds nice.
Brigid
Yes do, lovie - We could call ourselves Age Before Beauty (guess which one I am?)
A bath chair was the fore-runner of the wheelchair - it was an enormous wicker contraption on wheels so that the patient was in a semi reclined position and steered it with a long stick attached to the front wheel ( I think I am right in saying they were all three wheelers - one at the front for under the legs and two at the back under the seat part) and old people were pushed up and down the promenade in retirement seaside towns by long-suffering relatives waiting for the inheritance. It's a very standard British cartoon (like from Punch magazine) of an old dear in a bath chair with an ear trumpet being a total tyrant to her family.
But I am definitely getting confused with old practice and new practice now. Today I am not working which is nice - I don't earn any money but I get to be at home with the Old Feller and the dogs and anyone else who drops by and get a bit of housey mumsy stuff done. So I was in a "Gosh another 24 hours and it's all so much fun" mood and lit a candle and some incense, found myself saying "May this peace and happiness I feel now, spread out through the world to wherever it is most needed ........ So Mote It Be!
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh
Perhaps there is neither old nor new practice, Knitwitch, only practice.
The Old Feller is going to go mental so I will not be on here much any more. Told you reading all these intensely longwinded posts would get me into trouble.
Well Metta and stuff to everyone - may be back when I can find a way to get ADSL or a second mortgage.
She spend too much time on here as it is, in my opinion!
-bf
This is riduculous ...... tried to invest in a bit more memory for pooter today - Old Feller took it to the repair man and when we got it back he said the whole pooter didn't work and gave us it back in bits - Old Feller put it back together.
Need more memory to be able to install ADSL so I can be online all the time.
AAAAAAggggggh no, sorry Om Om Om Om Om OMigodIneedmorememory
I'm laughing at the OM OM OM omigodIneedmorememory through my tears. There must be SOMETHING that can be done. What is wrong with France? Why don't they have the option of unlimited internet on slow dial up for a reasonable monthly fee? I pay $25 CDN a month and can use it as much as I want.
If you need more memory, can't you back up some of your bigger, lesser used files on disc and remove them from your computer? Or something? Sounds like the Old Feller knows a thing or two more than me, though. So I doubt I have any solutions.
There's GOT to be a way...
I MUST have you here! That's all there is to it! (Uh, oh. I think I'm having another tantrum.)
Do you have the ability to synchronize web pages to be read offline? That could be a solution. I'll keep thinking...
Love,
Brigid
PLEASE HOLD ON TO YOUR EGO long enough to get justice with your internet service provider (LowLifes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Can't you put on your worst behaviour for a few minutes and rant and rave and demand your RIGHTS AS A CITIZEN of the 21st Century? BTW, what's this about AOL? I thought they were this side of the Big Pond.
I am presently being haunted with bad thoughts.
This has got me into a sour mood, and when I'm sour I don't mess with what I ought to...
Fondly,
Nirvana
The sitch is that my pooter (Dennis) is very old - he shares a lot of characteristics with the Old Feller and I love him just as much but he is equally difficult to live with at times (ask Fede she's met both of them!)
AOL is doing it's very best, it's not their fault and it is me being horribly self indulgent, staying logged in for hours at t time and forgetting that I don't have ulimited, that unlimited isn't available to people on old pooters like Dennis any more and that Dennis can't cope with ADSL broadband unless we can find a bit more memory for him. I am considering stuffing ginko booboo pills down the Disc slot (they work on the Old Feller).
Something will be done, even if it is buying me a new second hand laptop and leaving Dennis to be my personal secretary for work and writing (he'd like that) but panic not, I'll be around, just not as much.
And thanks again - you are all so kind and now I am getting all sniffly and stupid so I'll push off and blow my nose and get a cup of coffee and light a candle and some incense for what a lucky old witch I am to have such good friends SNNNNNIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFF