What the Ego (Thinks It) Knows

Grasping, Delusional, Righteous

 

Oh the world is a beautiful place/to be born into

if you don’t much mind . . . .                                            

. . ..its men of distinction/and its men of extinction

and its priests/and other patrolmen.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, The World is a Beautiful Place

Abnormal energy is in the service of inhibiting and obstructing our sense of being alive. When it takes voice in an actor, it’ll likely tell us there is a threat, though it doesn’t admit to fear. It says that it must restrain wild impulses. It must act like a resistor on a circuit board that limits (or, as its name implies, resists) the flow of an electrical current, dampening imagination, robbing us of possibilities.

It has energy, but not one that creates.

When such a blocking function rules us, it operates like societies priests and other patrolmen, wielding the authority to close gates, locking us into prisons of expectations—interfering with our ability to see the beautiful world we have been born into.

If you haven’t peered closely at the Abnormal masquerade and its antics, you might well think it’s OK, because its disguises are so commonplace in our fractured society. But as a left-hemisphere-leaning force, it has limited depth, no authentic purpose other than to continue as it is, to grow in its power, and to stop what interferes with it. The soliloquies that it prompts can sound committed, even patriotic or inspiring, but these are memorized words, recordings.

If pressed, it’ll abandon any “principle.” Because it is not a moral force.

Why this painting?

This painting wonders if you can distinguish between authenticity and Abnormal’s “normal.” Generally, if you’re striving to achieve normalcy, then you’re pursuing a low quality of life. Rather than daring to be an extraordinary soul, you are settling with “fitting in,” acting according to what is customary and acceptable to others. Any force of consciousness that chooses such a “normal” is aberrant, repressive, and clearly disconnected from the whole of who you truly are. Since we all live in a traumatized society, we all have some version(s) of the Abnormal. Our Work requires that we recognize this force in ourselves and in others.

Practical insight requires that we learn when it’s driving our life. Only Inspiration has the capacity, to get out of the cage and to discern the Abnormal from the outside, to become a witness to what is standing on the stage. And that’s the essential dilemma, when we have been injured, we get stuck in the Abnormal. We can’t escape the egoic energies enveloping us from the inside or the outside. We can’t find our way to step back.

Inside Out:

Abnormal psychic power is what William Blake called Urizen (Your Reason) in his mythic poem, The Four Zoas. It is an entity distorted by grandiose attempts to control what it cannot, becoming a cruel figure that sets up machinery to bind our psyche, chaining down our active imagination and our vitality to the limitations of our intellect, while blind to the increasing chaos it promotes.^[ii]

It seems to have had a bit of a right-hemisphere stroke. As Iain Mc Gilchrist describes this: “Denial is left-hemisphere specialty . . . subjects tend to evaluate themselves optimistically, view the picture more positively, and are more apt to stick to their existing point of view . . . . It’s always a winner.” ^[iii]

Maybe that seems attractive? Who doesn’t want to be around a winner? But loss of the right-hemisphere also results in diminished ability to feel or acknowledge human suffering. It neuro-gravitates to machines and to the lifeless, and thus cannot function as a virtuous force. It sucks away much of our humanity until we are at risk of madness. In whatever costume this force dresses up, it’s the very definition of insanity because it actively denies reality, at least the whole of it. We might notice its pull when we are “selectively honest,” when, like the right-hemisphere-stroke patient, we deny our sadness when there is every reason to grieve profoundly. We resist vulnerability and we strive to cover over any inner fragmentation and dysfunction or doubt.

Inside of us, when it becomes a demanding force, it can push us into our worst charade. It takes (often craves) the spotlight, and it can opportunistically pretend (it cannot play but it can pretend). Don’t be misled. This is an animating energy that primes a disposition, forges an externally focused false identity—often called our “personality”—wired to the details of a small human life. When embraced, it becomes a persistent set of traits, preferences and attitudes, dislikes. With superior mannerisms, it warns us, in repetitive resentments and obsessions, what to avoid or inhibit, and how to talk (or not) and chew gum.

Upside down:

When we see this energy in the world (and it is everywhere) you can notice that it is serious, at least it takes seriously any mask it is wearing at the time. This can be a banker or chief operating officer acting with grave soberness because our society expects such authorities to be humorlessly earnest. But it is more than that. The Abnormal’s serious intensity is the result of its aversion of spontaneity and creativity or any emotional or imaginative freedom. That’s what ego theorists notice when they posit that an Apparently Normal Part (ANP) is phobic of the Emotional Part (EP).

Try to play with it, and it will respond with threats. Poke at it and feel the aggrieved juice of it. It will bite, though the full bite might be strategically placed out of view of the audience. The persona may explode, rage, disown you or become dismissive, cutting you or others to the core. I’ve got you now! Blaming you or others in its cliché language for being its last straw.

Or, it may go the other direction, imploding in front of you, portraying a dramatically wounded character, seeming to collapse.