“to hell with the ego of it. be free,” jude says. and, as usual, her crystal ball works better than mine. it’s precisely what i’m after, the notion of being free. it’s what i’m perpetually chasing: an ego-free existence.
having been raised in a religious environment (i’m over that now) (as much as you can ever be over early religious training) (ever hear julia sweeney’s one-woman performance called letting go of god? it’s the catholic version of me.), the phrase “pride goeth before a fall” was something i heard as much as i heard the word “salt”. (i could tell you (perhaps convincingly) that we used salt to cure the hogs we killed for food – and i can actually remember that happening. but just barely. truth is: as grossly unfashionable as it is, we just like salt. which is good for my mother’s side of the family who has low blood pressure and bad for daddy’s side who has high pressure.) pride is, of course, a dress ego wears, and i think i’m pretty much over it now, given all the water that’s run under . . . well, let’s try to contain our metaphors: given all the stitches that have been ripped out of that particular dress.
and though i’m mostly over it (finally), there are still a few remnants of perfectionism (another dress ego wears) hanging around. there’s the brightly colored dress of “will-i-be-found-worthy” that often jumps to the front of the closet (stay with me: i’m trying to stick to the metaphor chiffarobe i created), just within reach (almost) every time i sit down to write a blog entry.
these are the clothes i’m trying to outgrow. don’t want to move off and leave them behind for somebody else to wear; don’t want to donate them to the thrift store because i sure don’t want anybody paying for a wardrobe of such burdensome attire.
and i think this (ever present) desire for a new wardrobe – a wardrobe in which every single piece bears a label (and this would be a good time to tell you how much i despise labels of any kind) with jude’s words – is what’s got me thinking about creativity. i mean i like how elizabeth gilbert resuscitated the ancient romans’ notion of geniuses – “distant disembodied unknowable spirits” who live in the walls of an artist’s studio and sometimes (frequently if the artist spends enough time in the studio doing their part of the work, as glennis so eloquently points out) come out with the most brilliant ideas and schemes.
but somehow along my way, i got stuck on the renaissance notion of self being the center of the universe. self-reliance became (and still) reigns large for and over me, and it permeates pretty much every area of my life. while i’m quite comfortable with the notion of being responsible for myself, for making my own choices and enduring or enjoying the inevitable consequences of those choices, it’s really pretty exhausting. (can we coin a word and say egohausting?) (exhausting = a word that back in steam engine days meant to let steam off after it had done its work. the “haust” part come from latin “haurire” which means “to draw”. and, in certain contexts, the ego does serve a worthwhile function: because orange is not my best color – and the ego knows this – it keeps me from, well . . . let’s just say that it makes me behave. so maybe i’m after an ego-free creative existence.)
ambling back to what i think was my central point . . .
okay. we’ll have to get back to this later. hubbie is (understandably) ready for breakfast and to get busy building cabinets that will, by the end of the day, replace the boxes in our bathroom.
to be continued . . .
