Last week I had a short but wonderful respite from the routine that has become my life. I went up to northern Michigan to rest and reflect, eat and meditate and recuperate from five months of physical hell. And rest I did! I had momentarily forgotten that strings of unplanned hours might lead to self-examination and scrutiny. In the late evening hours, when my sister and brother-in-law had gone to bed, I took to reading and journaling, since I stay up a couple of hours later than they do. A lot of what I wrote was just about the experiences of each day, but, at times, I began to ask myself some hard questions based on areas of disillusionment in my life and history. Some interesting things began to surface.
I have always considered and viewed myself as a modest and workmanlike person. The way I saw myself, I was pretty much ego-less and not desiring praise, love, acknowledgment, accolades, envy or admiration. Right? My intent was pure and motivated only by art and the perfection thereof. Right? I was good being the guy in the middle who wanted to help everybody else. I guess I also believed that pigs fly and Santa Claus does indeed fly a sleigh drawn by reindeer.
Oh, sure—publicly, I was all of those things. Privately, below my awareness level, I was something less. Attached to everything I did, there was the desire to be admired, loved and approved of. At some deep level, I have been addicted to it. Everything in my life has been motivated by the reward of a pat on the back or some random accolade. Ego gratification, in other words. I have always been trying to prove myself worthy in one way or another—as a musician, a writer, a songwriter, a friend, a parent, a lover and as a husband, father, son and son-in-law. And what was I really after? Love, pure and simple.
I wanted others to love me, admire my work and approve of me as a person. I wanted the giant rubber stamp of bona fide approval. I only wanted to be okay in the eyes of those I loved. That desire motivated everything in my life for years, but, when I looked it in the eye, it made me wonder if I chose my path wisely or out of desperation. Everything felt weighted down by my own insatiable ego. That house of cards was now starting to crumble, just when I thought that I was past all those juvenile shenanigans.
Without being too hard on myself, I think that everybody is subject to the same needs and stresses to some degree. I started thinking about everybody I know. Everyone I could think of was as hungry and appreciative of being loved as I am. It is a natural desire. At one point, I saw all the beings in the world hoping to come together, with love being a force as powerful as magnetism—drawing people out of isolation and into a common bond. Then, I felt less guilty about my need. I started to see my role in life differently. Aren’t we all here, to some degree, to light up the lives and experiences of others? And, vice versa—aren’t we here to receive the gifts from others, so that they might illuminate our life experiences in earthly life? Isn’t it okay, as George Bush Sr. once alluded to, to become a “point of light” in the world? Isn’t that kind of the point of why we are here in the first place? Of course.
So, I began to wonder, what purpose did ego really serve in this grand cosmic dance? Was it the fuel that drove people to take on gargantuan tasks in order to share and receive love? Well, yeah. So it’s not a bad thing, right? Or is it? Or does it depend on what we are aware of?
I came to the conclusion that ego has the most power in youth. It fuels dreams and makes people hungry to achieve at the highest levels. Its breeding ground is ignorance and innocence. Everybody starts there except for saints, I suppose. The thing is, it is sort of like training wheels on a bike. Eventually, you want to ride without them. Ego is something that should be outgrown and discarded as a human being reaches maturity. When the wheels come off, a person should finally realize that creating love in the world ensures receiving love of equal or greater magnitude. Or, as Paul McCartney sang in “The End”:
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make
Seeing art and life from that viewpoint alters the picture a bit. The emphasis shifts from “being loved” to “sharing love” and from self to others. It doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t celebrate and get joy from seeing others made happy. That is a good thing. The real difference comes when one is outside the realm of sharing and contact. Then, the important thing is to find happiness and contentment in the vacuum when there is no outside validation. If I can’t find real happiness on my own, without outside validation, then I have a big problem. Some would say that peace is found between a man and his maker, and no other way. I’d probably agree. I have bought into many foolish notions, thinking that certain successes would deliver me from my pain and my sorrows. That deliverance never materialized.
When babies leave the nest, they should figure out how to be self-sufficient and how to carry on without the cushion of constant parental doting. The less they are able to do so, the more ego comes to the temporary rescue. In the end, it’s about what you do because you love to do it. That trumps doing something to BE loved by a mile. The former is independent and the latter is needy. Yet, in a physical world of dichotomy, loving is always stronger than needing love.
I am learning that, slowly.