Eye for an 'I'

 

Signs of the self are everywhere. Each time we use an ‘I’ statement, I aver, we subtly surrender objectivity for subjectivity. Difficult not to, since every observation, sensation, feeling, touch, taste, and smell arises directly from our apprehension of particularities. (Even when most empathetic, we are hardly able entirely to see another’s point of view.) Yet, as I know, an ego preserves boundaries; we have a lifetime of experience, at whatever age. We live in terms of a relationship to persons, to things, and even to our geography. Our entelechy, or degrees of inquisitive energy, propels us. We assimilate, at once selfless and selfish, subordinating our selfhood to desires, proclivities, preferences, and wants. Yes, I know, “But, I am me.”

Yet if I begin and end here, and you are there, how can we really be ‘One’? What’s with the ‘third eye’? What’s with the Collective Consciousness, an Ubermensch? How can we be an admixture of individual souls as interdependent as the molecules of the sea, each subject to the vicissitudes of tide and time? How can my energy, like all energy, not actually die, but simply become transmuted into the collective whole? Surely, I shall retain my own identity! Still be me? Yes, belief, assurances, and inexactitudes are yoked in streams of traditionalisms that define groups, sub-groups, and the individual: I believe. (Closely aligned with ‘me,’ can also be a ‘we.’)

Where the subtleties of ‘self’ arises (and here I do not speak of narcissism,) there is the propensity to project onto others the subjective sensations of the self in our given moments, in thought, feelings, attitudes, or even beliefs. Because you do not appear to feel the same, we are not kismet. Because you do not think the same, we are not compatible. Because you have so much passion about this, or that, and I don’t, we are not commensurate. And because you believe in this, or that, politically, religiously, or even traditionally, we cannot easily share, or even communicate. I am different from you. You are different from me. Let’s leave it that. The one who is rightest gets to feel like the winner. The other, being less right, more wrong, or decidedly put out to left field, simply is not to be included into my oeuvre of connections. I do not wish to abide with him, or her. I cannot share. I cannot easily communicate. And my time is precious; I do not choose to waste it. “I feel that...” and so on. Indeed, our disinclinations, we honour.

Peace comes dripping slow. Enlightenment would have one become more and more accepting of every moment, of every person, of every thought, of every contention, of every philosophy, of every... well, of everything. (And which part of Everything is not?) But ‘I’ can get in the way. I am irritated. I am disgruntled. I am discombobulated. I am inaccurate. I am guilty, shallow, avaricious, greedy, and impatient. As the song goes: “Let’s talk about me!” Yet narcissism aside, the subtlety of our self-involvement perpetuates as we bring reference to everything around ourselves from our own point of view. It naturally is so. But at issue here is that the degree of compassion we most can exhibit, resonate with, feel at core, is dependent on our instinctive and intuitive connection to others. We are relational. We are ‘the family of man.’ Still, self-preservation, self-sufficiency, selfishness, self-interest, selfhood, and self-indulgence pervades.

“Do not take anything personally,” (according to The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz.) Paradoxically, an integrity of self-hood allows for not needing, seeking, wanting, or caring about the approbation, approval, applause, reciprocity, or flattery of others.  It is a sufficiency unto one-self. My spirituality. My progress. My health. My worth. My interests. My self. Still, as Morrie (on a given Tuesday) asks, I do wonder if I can settle for being ‘fully human.’ Ha! All are but components in a universal whole, I think. Now then, as for you? What do you say, eh?