Identity, ego, love, self-loathing, acceptance, validation, who would have thought just be yourself could be so damn complicated. Yet, everyday we guide our students, our children, our friends to just be themselves and everything will be alright. Find your voice, express yourself, and all that other bullshit, when it reality, at least for me, everyday is much scarier than that.
I am a thirty six year old father of two beautiful girls, married to an amazing women who loves me more than I could ever imagine any one person could, I have a group of friends I have had since I was thirteen year olds, I have been living overseas- a dream of mine since childhood for over ten years doing work that I love, I have enough money to live a comfortable life, I go to bed every night awash in blessings I can never truly appreciate, I have hobbies that satiate my soul, my every experience is tainted with passion, and I ain’t bad lookin.’ I tell you all of this because despite this apparently successful life, I am often scared and feel utterly alone. I lose myself in unsubstantiated anxiety and need to be reminded that I matter. I want my voice to be validated and be told that I am unique and special and important. Sometimes the feeling is so strong that I feel I could disappear completely if I don’t speak up. I am sure there is a medical term for this condition. I am sure there is a series of lectures at a great many yoga hall and Zendo to help me get through my attachment to my ego, but like most things in my life I am working through it on my own.
Do I reek of insecurity? Am I a shallow egomaniac? Perhaps, but I am willing to bet no matter how you play your mask in the grand stage of life you feel the same way. John Spencer once wrote, and I am paraphrasing here that: he is a good teacher because he is broken not despite it, and I couldn’t agree more. I am tired of acting like needing to be accepted and loved is a weakness.
My journey, like all human trips has had its ups and downs. I will not go into the details here, wait for the book, but one thing that has persistently stayed with me, my entire life has been me. Yup the ole ego, the desperate clinging to me, myself, and I. Various Zen texts and Yoga T-shirts have advised me to let go of the self to truly connect to the greater universe, but no matter how I try here I am again. A fragile little boy wondering whose body I am walking in now.
There was a time when I drown out his voice in alcohol and self-destruction. But after ten years+ of trying to silence the scrawny eight year old from my photo albums, I am proud to say he appears to have made it. These days I find it easier to listen to him when he speaks, or allow him to sing when he needs to, I encourage him to take over, you may have met him as he often Tweets. I ask his advice and let him father my children and teach my students. He doesn’t have all the answers and is often confounded by the simplest emotions, but he tries hard and seems to live life with an enthusiasm I sometimes find embarrassing. He is gaining confidence and is finding his voice, but he still likes to be told he is special. He likes it when people read his words and agree or disagree, he doesn’t care as long as he is heard. He likes it when people listen to his music or admire his photos. He likes it when people enter his head and look out through his eyes, because when they….. you, are in here it doesn’t feel so alone. And really do we need art for anything more than passageways into each others souls?
Don’t get me wrong! I will do this, everything I do, because I have no choice. The voice inside my head simply needs escape; it has for as long as I can remember, but I am not embarrassed to admit that I like to be recognized, I need to be heard, I want to be loved. I want to blow up my ego to the point of not needing it anymore, but in the meantime an award saying that people value the randomness of my spirit and that it is relevant to them, or that my words have meaning in some small way in this vast lonely universe will be just fine.
I have so many more stories to share about this topic, but I will save them for the book. There has been much talk about awards, and pandering, and ego and validation, and….and….and….At the end of the day, all this award will prove is that I have the loudest echo in the chamber, or wait:
Will it somehow prove that a lone voice, different than all the rest, a voice of honest raw practicality, the voice of a true artist, a sage, a shaman if you will, has entered the conversation…..That must be my out of control ego again. Quick, let him hit publish and see how many retweets he gets, how many comments, how many votes he garners from this ploy. Wait he? Is that the little boy, my ego, is he me? Told you this is complicated
Talk amongst yourselves, we’ll be out on the stoop admiring the tree in front of the house. It brings us peace and quiets the noise in our head a few seconds every night.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Elliot Smith.
First of all, Jabiz, thank you for writing this. I knew it was coming… and it’s nice to see how you’ve framed it all.
Secondly, being attached to one’s ego is of course a weakness — but a weakness we all have. This is your journey, as you said. You can choose to do what you want on this path. And it looks like you’ve made some — no, many — very wise choices. And so the rest of us can choose too, no?
Being attached to one’s ego, letting one’s ego guide our decisions, is a weakness. We each choose to handle that differently at different points along our path. It’s virtually impossible to not give into ego ever. Even that master philosophers, yogi gurus, and ancients will tell you this; only the holy were ever able to not give into ego, and that is indeed what made them holy.
…moving away from the references to anything even remotely “spiritual” because I know that doesn’t resonate with you…
My point is, it’s a weakness we all have but we each make choices daily. Most days I give into my ego by styling my hair and wearing earrings. My ego wants people to say I’m pretty, or that I have good fashion sense (which, I do. hah.). Some days I give into my ego by posting what my friend calls “smarmy” status updates on Facebook, self-promoting and fishing for responses. My recent blog post even had some of that, to some level.
However, what’s also true is that changing of any kind of behavior involves a change in thinking. And changing one’s thinking is like anything else — how do we become good at something? Practice. Reminds me of that old joke – “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”
So I choose to practice detachment from my ego. I practice this in different ways. I’ve been learning how to change my thought patterns so that I remove expectation from my personal and professional relationships, for example. Moving every few years and once having many of my belongings stolen has taught me that my ego does not need “stuff” — these lessons do not always appear by choice, but they are reminders and I then choose to go deeper, so that I truly learn the lesson. Sometimes I am successful. Most times I am not. Usually I realize that it will be a life-long process, one that is neverending: I will never never be completely free from my ego’s needs. And this is fine.
And one’s ego is good sometimes. It’s my ego that reminds me to stand up for myself when I’m being treated disrespectfully, for example. My ego also pushes me forward to take on new challenges (ahem, thesis!). But I’m learning every day how to keep it in check. I do not want my ego running my life. I have other plans. 🙂
Part of the way I choose to practice the detachment from my ego is to not be bothered with the “edublogging” community and what seems (to me, anyway) to often be some exclusive behaviors. The Edublog awards are part (but not all) of that. And this is the reason I won’t indulge them. I could easily get on board with that — my ego would love for me to. Posting and commenting and being involved for the purpose/goal of having other people respond to me and tell me how wonderful I am (despite having never seen me teach or spoken to anyone who has) would make my ego feel brilliant. But I choose not to go there. I learned when I first began this Web2.0 game that it’s very easy to fall into that. Heck, I learned it with Web1.0 back in 1995 when I was an online host for CompuServe — the interwebs can do wonders for feeding my ego. But I’m choosing not to let that happen. I’m choosing to connect, to communicate, to create, to question, to build — other things that give me different kinds of validation, I guess.
That doesn’t mean I judge those who do fall into what I described above. We’re all at different places, we all have different paths. Do what you like. Stay happy. I’m totally cool with that. A choice you make like this does not impact me, so I support it. But just because you … or anyone else for that matter… is doing it, doesn’t mean I have to. I am making different choices.
(Phew that was long. One day, Jabiz, I look forward to us sitting over a drink — tea for you, wine for me — talking philosophy! 🙂 )
Thanks for a great comment, better conversation, and very enriching relationship, dare I say friendship. As always you are pushing my thinking and forcing me to examine ideas I take for granted because they are mine. I don’t want to turn this into a back and forth style comment feed, because I think that would sully the nature of the topic, but of course I am open to carrying on in a more fluid manner whatever that looks like.
To start with, I hope I do not come across as anti-spiritual, much of what I do is based in my spiritual quest for understanding. I sometimes allow my cynicism to overshadow my idealism, but there is definitely a battle raging within me. I see all human action as political and spiritual. So please if you want to take this conversation “there’ by all mans please do so. It is a great reminder how I may have lost track of my Zen practice. The guiding philosophy of my journey.
You make some excellent points about how I tend to shape other people’s viewpoints based on my own needs and expectations. I think my need to do this stems from this line from a Modest Mouse song:
I know this of myself
I assume as much for other people
But I am starting to think that I need to be open to the idea that while we are very similar at our core, we are just as different by how we perceive and react to reality. Anyway, your comment made think about my practice and how I choose to detach from my ego. Like I mentioned in the post I may have been clinging for some time now and may need to find a way to detach a bit in my own way.
As for the edublog/sphere stuff, that is another post all together. I have thoughts on it, but will write more on that later.
Thanks again for the other view point.
Can you really separate yourself from yourself? Does compartmentalizing part of yourself make it easier to celebrate or deride your own decisions?
To a certain extent I lean on my belief in Christ to help me settle these questions. While I may choose to focus inward, the teachings of Christ point to focusing outward to others. I suspect this helps me create some balance. I see you focusing outward often too. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that “it is not about me”.
I too look forward to the day we can have conversations face to face.
I am not sure the point is to separate yourself so much as it is to connect yourself to something bigger by realizing that you do not exist separate to that something bigger. You call it god or Jesus, I call in the universe, shared consciousness- life force.
The idea is that we are all interconnected and so we suffer when we try to separate from that by saying we exist within a bubble called the self. The ego struggles to be apart from that which is all inclusive. Great article here: http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2502?page=2
You use Christ, I use Zen same same……
“To know others is wise; to know yourself is enlightened.” ~Lao Tzu
I will continue this response with more wisdom from the Tao Te Ching #54 by Lao Tzu:
Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.
Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all the countries of the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.
How do I know this to be true?
By looking inside myself.
I think, Jabiz, that you have become genuine and your universe is singing.
~ Tim
Use the force Tim! I love it. Thanks. I have always loved the Tao and it’s connection to Stat Wars.
finally got around to reading this.
and I really should be writing something else, but instead I find myself procrastinating here. it’s not a bad thing =)
I think I relate to some aspect of what you’re saying…
in the last few months (actually years, sigh), I have been having more and more of this conversation with myself and other people – talking about how I want to be loved, to be told I am loved, to be told I am beautiful, in words, gestures, looks, anything. to be… acknowledged.
sometimes I feel like a little girl left at the train station, looking into grownups’ eyes to see the recognition of myself reflected in those eyes.
of the friends I have shared some of this with, 3 of them said this to me: why can’t you do that for yourself? why do you need to get it from someone else? and… I don’t really have the answer to that question, other than that I have no idea how to do this for myself.
I don’t know if this is about ego or not. all I know is that I’m working on loving myself more. appreciating myself more. reminding myself of me. because in the end, we are only answerable to ourselves.
yes I am part of something bigger than me, but I can only start appreciating what that truly means once I am aware of ME.
(apologies is this is somewhat rambly, it’s 3am =) )
I guess what I am often dealing with is this: I can love myself just fine. I have, through years of practice and self-examination finally reached a level of honest self confidence. I no longer hide behind drunken alter egos or pretend to be what I am not. I try my best to critically look at who I am and move from there. What I am saying is that, while this may be enough and/or healthy why it is wrong to want/need/expect external validation as well. It’s all fine and good to have a healthy self-esteem, but who can’t use a little outside hug every once in a while?
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