Good Things Still Get Done
Wednesday is suffused with sunlight, and stands to be summertime hot, though meteorological fall has arrived. No matter! I welcome a day or two more of summer before the tilt of the earth’s axis brings shorter and cooler days.
Yesterday was dedicated to keeping a long anticipated appointment with my cardiologist. A needed heart tune-up was received (remedy of irregular heart-beat) with the help of cutting edge technology. My parent’s generation would not have imagined such non-invasive cardiac surgery. And I feel fine the day after…
This segment is from a weekly newsletter received from Rob Brezsny, a writer who lives in California. Brezsny writes often on topics psychological and spiritual. He writes on substack, he publishes a syndicated astrology column as well. He is a “free-spirited” soul. This is a paean to the ego. Brezsny takes an interesting, counter-intuitive assessment since we are conditioned to feel and believe negatively about the ego. Credit for our negative reflex goes to Sigmund Feud, also to the cultural ethos of Christianity here in the West. So, enjoy this kindly, gentle, deft thought experiment to imagine a friendly conversation with your ego.
Thank you for letting me believe I can make a difference in the world, whether that belief is objectively true or gloriously delusional. Without that presumption, I might never have risked making art, offering love, speaking truth, or attempting repair.
Thank you for not letting me disappear behind counterfeit humility.
Thank you for resisting the temptation to make myself small in order to seem agreeable or spiritually evolved.
Thank you for the self-promotion, for the sometimes awkward, sometimes necessary declaration: I am here. I made this. It matters to me. Maybe it will matter to you.
Thank you for pushing me to crave validation through my acts of service. Even if the motives are mixed, a lot of good things still gets done. Care still circulates and healing happens. Plus: Motives can be composted into cleaner motives over time.
If you are interested in reading Brezsny’s post on the ego in its entirety CLICK HERE
2 thoughts on “Good Things Still Get Done”
The yin and yang of self-reflection is evident in Mr. Brezny’s words. The struggle to understand the difference between self-aggrandizement and perceived altruism leads some of us to constantly question both our motivations and our purpose in writing. I doubt if I will even fully know why I write or why I even make a statement such as this.
A number of years ago our acquaintance, Wendell Berry, once asked me why I wanted to visit him at his Kentucky home. I went round and round trying to formulate some kind of reasonable answer. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I didn’t have a succinct or rational answer to his question. The bottom line was that I just wanted to. Whether it was for an ability to state to others that we visited an icon or whether there was a true intent to connect on some level, I doubt if I’ll ever know. This is the ego as discussed by Mr. Brezny, popping up to push us towards action without a true sense of “why”. But then again, if I think about it too much I’ll only succeed in driving myself crazy.
Good thoughts. My inner self is not unitary, but is onion-like with many layers. No doubt most of my desires come from experiences that I cannot remember. Still those events and words shape my emotional “weather”. I think Mr. Berry’s question was apt when you consider that we were strangers to him. We had a good idea from his poems and short stores what he cared about. We were “a mystery” and should have been able to voice “something” about what we had in mind and heart for our visit. I know that I was not there to collect his autograph… I was excited to discover where our conversation together would go.
As Wendell Berry has passed on, I intend and hope that both of us will continue his work as our ability allows.