your ego will humiliate you

one of those paradoxes showing up in life. rely too much on your ego—which seeks to glorify you—and you will be forcibly humbled by life.

we are all flawed, all hypocritical by nature. and i think “hypocritical” is a relative term in this instance. relative to expectations.

by nature, human beings are woven of back and forth, of yes and no, of weak and strong, of up and down. of this and that. and of the other, too.

when we allow ourselves this, we are healthier. if US culture accounted for this, what a healthier nation it might be.

but popular culture dictates we ought restrict ourselves to This or That. to binaries, to cylindrical, inflexible clothing, to rigid roles, to opinions cast in stone, to a Type. to seek control and normalcy and reliability and consistency. some would say this reflects a fear of the Void; of change; of the Unknown.

i wonder if we are simply taught to fear looking in the mirror and not recognizing our self.

and why do we need to always know where we are at? why do we always need to be sure of Who We Are? what is so terrifying about being aether? about being water? about shifting, moving around rocks, warming and then cooling, freezing and then boiling? twilight colored mist one morning and black rain the next? is that not freedom?

then again, we are not taught to seek freedom in this nation that i’ve grown up in. despite the anthems and nationalistic catch-phrases. we have plastic deities paraded before us on plasma screens and well-edited, soundtracked sequences to showcase them, and told that we—us silly, messy, happy, freaky, soft-shelled beings—should emulate and calcify into these towering gods of nonsense and noise.

and shown how to build teflon-coated, steel-laden ideas, and to inhabit them and told that when we can make it all match up; when we can fit our seams together as tight and prettily as the shell of an iPhone, a sense of satisfaction will be delivered. that the glory we deserve will finally be ours.

and so when our spirit seeks to erode the locks, or bleed through the seams, or implode the entire structure, we are taught that this is failure. we might see, then, these fluctuations and burrs in the system as hypocrisies that must be hidden.

but the hypocrisy is not our changing from day to day and moment to moment. the hypocrisy is imagining we are static, linearly directed beings.

and the culture teaches us of these dull ideas: of infallibility, of becoming our very own celebrity, chock full of glory of a sort which brooks no contradiction and once attained, enables us to stand atop a peak and shine for all, illuminating the lesser state and quality of others.

i test these icons when they appear. i spit fire at ghosts when they bring deathsongs into my dreams. not because i want them to fail or to be false. to the contrary: i seek those i might learn from. as i’ve written: i believe in masters. they exist, they appear, and in many guises, just as “god” will. but so do fools. that is to say: if i can’t learn from them one way, i’ll learn another.

but i will learn, i guarantee that. i do learn. and mama knows, i need the lessons.

if a person poses themselves as the manifestation of peace, i will test their calm. if a person poses themselves as the steadfast reflection of unwavering trust, i will place my heart in their hands. if a person heralds their coming as the true friend, i will reach out my hand and invite them in. if a person adorns their head with a crown of mastery, i will test their skills.

i will follow no ordinary person off a cliff. but if they can fly, and i see them do it with my own eyes, i will. and if they fall—a victim of their own hype, a character in their own book—i will sing them a song in my private cathedral of the All Too Human: your ego has led you astray, i may say. rejoin us on the ground.

learn to roar without making a sound