What In the World is Going On?
As I write this, the lead story is that Russia is invading Ukraine. It feels to many people like yet another setback for those of us whose desire for peace and harmony seems to be consistently thwarted. The story this morning is all about bad behavior and punishment, or at least about consequences, for that behavior. When I think about the history of this and the previous century, I find it hard to identify any occasion on which punishment and consequences have actually rid the world of the bad behavior they were designed to counter. Why is that?
Whenever I observe what I judge to be bad behavior, whether in myself, my family, or my community, the first place my mind goes is to: “What’s wrong with me/him/her/them?” “What character defect is responsible for this conduct?” “How can we fix ourselves and people in general?”
Back in July of last year, I suggested in a post entitled “Ego and the Transformed Relationship,” that there is another way of looking at these situations that might offer more understanding and ultimately more leverage in changing the way things are. We normally consider ego to be that (undesirable) aspect of our being in the world that blames, resists, and seeks revenge. I suggested that it is more effective and empowering to consider Ego as the context or container in which we live our lives.
The Ocean of Ego
I find it useful to liken the Ego to a global ocean, or field, in which we are immersed. And like the fish in the ocean, we’re not aware that the ocean of Ego colors or distorts everything we look at. Because we’re not aware of this fact, we think we’re seeing things clearly, the way they are. When we’re not aware of the ocean we are immersed in, we tend to regard others, and ourselves, as acting rationally from that person’s particular perspective, which might be selfish, altruistic, or somewhere in between.
However, what we’re really doing is acting in accordance with our view of the world from within the Ego. So, while we are sorely tempted to blame those who act in ways that are odious, distasteful, or simply incomprehensible from our perspective, we could instead thank them for illuminating the Ego itself.
So, what of the drama that’s playing out this morning in Ukraine? We can indulge in blaming Mr. Putin, or Mr. Biden, or whomever we choose to identify as the culprit in what’s going on. Or, we can allow those prominent characters in the drama of the day to illuminate for us a particular aspect of the global Ego, the dominant cultural understanding of our world, the ocean in which we’re immersed.
From that perspective, what does Mr. Putin have to teach us this morning? We can choose to see him as showing us the behavior of the Ego when it’s threatened with loss of power, prestige, and influence. It seethes, it plots revenge and restitution, it seeks to dominate others and avoid their domination, and it attempts to even the score of some un- or misidentified contest of will.
Where else have we seen that behavior? Where else have those proclivities of the Ego been acted out?
Who among us has not indulged in seething, plotting revenge and restitution, trying to avoid the domination of others, and perhaps in trying to even some score? If we’re all immersed in the same ocean, and I think it’s demonstrable that we are, we have all had those thoughts, and many of us have acted on them in some way. And it’s no wonder… all of us are thinking within and acting from a viewpoint that is distorted by the Ego. That’s inevitable for a human being.
What is the way out? Is that even the right question to ask, assuming we do want out of this mess?
A “Way Out”
Time to clean house
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Suppose I decide to clean house when the sunlight is coming in through all the windows. My first reaction upon seeing the dirt that previously had gone unnoticed might be some form of upset. If I don’t want to take the time and effort to clean it up, I might sweep it under the rug. Or I might wait for clouds or darkness to hide the dirt, so that my ordinary efforts at housecleaning might be considered “good enough.”
It has become apparent to me that if I really want my house to be clean, I can take advantage of the sunlight that pours in through the windows to illuminate what’s not clean. Mr. Trump illuminated some aspects of the global Ego, and Mr. Putin seems to be taking those aspects “on the road,” so to speak. At some point, we human beings will have had enough of providing the energy with which the Ego sustains itself. They (we) will recognize that we must get “underneath” our identification with the Ego and find the truth of our Being, the fish that is immersed in the ocean. And then, because the ocean of Ego is made of a few fundamental assumptions, we can clean up the ocean so that we can see clearly.
It’s worth a try. Next time: cleaning up the ocean of Ego…
