Tag Archives: ego

Confidence, and No Confidence – Blog No. 8

confidence-vs-arrogance-entrepreneur-chart

An important initial distinction to make is the difference between confidence and esteem. They are not the same thing. ‘No confidence’ suggests that there is a courage lacking in a person’s actions, a lack of belief in what a person is capable of doing – and by rights – should do, but doesn’t. Confidence – understandably – is the currency of politics, of scam-artists and esteemed liars. Also, it is the medium used by those who are certain about what what they want, and know that they can achieve it. Confidence is not arrogance, that is another story in itself.

Esteem is more personal, perhaps more fragile than confidence itself, is. Esteem is what affords an individual success, real success. This is because it is authentic – it cannot be manufactured or conjured up at will. In other words, it is a purely natural state of being. Esteem exists where a person is familiar with themselves and their purpose, and both the knowledge thereof – and the understanding – fills them with peace. That peace cannot be bought at any cost. Confidence is at times no more than a means to an end. Esteem has more integrity.

No confidence usually stems from a dented ego. Or damaged pride. This can be repaired in due course with the correct ministrations. Low self-esteem happens to persons who are failing in their focus, their purpose. It is not possible to have high self-esteem when you are not in a position to fulfil your reason(s) for being. If you consider that three quarters of this planet’s populace cannot currently fulfil their true reason(s) for being, you will understand why this earth is in the dire straights that it is.

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The Circus – Blog No. 70

CircusFest_Photo_Matilda-Temperley_low-resThis earth is a circus.  It’s about time it got its act together.  There is an audience, waiting.  There are animals pacing, fretting, hating.  The big top is filled with suspense and the acrobats are waiting to fly.  Where is the ringmaster?  The circus is at a standstill until the ringmaster arrives.  What can he possibly be doing?  His show waits to go on.

Perhaps he has been eaten around the back, by a tiger.  Perhaps he is drunk, in his trailer.  Perhaps he has forgotten that he has a performance this day?  Whatever his excuse, it is not good enough.  You cannot choose to be ringmaster and then neglect your duties.

The wild animals would all like to kill the ringmaster.  Each one of them.  He is a nuisance to them.  A man who punishes, bullies, exploits.  A noise.  Each flick of his whip is a death-wish.  If he should turn his back on the wild for even one moment, he will lose his life.  He knows this so he shouts, postures, threatens.  The animals watch and they obey, wearily tolerating man’s ego.

The clowns are sweating yesterday’s booze and this morning’s boredom.  They know their act is not funny but they line up in the wings, ready to entertain with fake enthusiasm.  The audience is anticipating stupidity from the clowns, and they will deliver that stupidity with practiced ease.  They always do.  They are paid to do that.

The tightrope is strung high.  There is no safety net.  This day the walker will perform successfully, or die.  He is fortunate that all eyes on his progress keeps him glued to the sky.  The walker watches horizons, he does not watch each of his steady steps, forwards.  You cannot look down and hope to know where you are going.

The dogs are the only ones who enjoy their performance.  They find fun in lying, rolling, jumping hoops.  They know that each trick will earn them a treat, a reward.  That is enough to motivate them into obeying orders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cruelty – Blog No. 62

Siberian-Tigers-forced-to-crouch-at-Fuzhou-Zoo-SE-China-2010You are what you learn.  If an animal learns cruelty from a human, whether in life or in death, its wild will become ferocious.  That an animal has enough self-control to perform tricks in a circus without killing the ringmaster is testimony to its tolerance for man’s desire to wield power.  Man does not wield power well.  It corrupts his giving spirit.  Keep in mind that we are all of Nature, we all have wild within.  It comes to us through the ages of our DNA, no matter where we are born or brought up.  Our wild feeds from source.  Source is contaminated.  There is a lot of cruelty to assimilate.  The scales are off-balance where wild is concerned and the imbalance is being visited upon the planet in the shape of man hurting man in a barbaric fashion.  Man has always hurt man – that is his way, his demonstration, his ascension to the top has always involved battles, scars.  The problem is that in our society there are a lot of people doing a lot of hurting and either deriving pleasure from the experience or not giving a shit.

There are too many children being raped in this world.  That is cruelty.  There is too much shit being spoken in the name of love.  That is cruelty.  People need to trust love, because it is very real.  As a force, it is breath-taking.  People need to know that love tells them the truth, not lies.  Love will not tell you what you want to hear.  If you are hearing exactly what you want from someone all the time, you must question their motives in life.  It is likely that they do not care for you the way you think they do.  Perhaps it is that they want something, or that they are already taking from you and in order to continue doing so they keep you sweet by filling your ears with shit.  Do not feel angry if you should realise that you have been or are being taken advantage of.  Used.  You allowed it to happen.  Your ego allows it to happen.  Keep your ego where you can see it, do not let it run away with you.  Be aware that a cruel person is addicted to cruelty.  Do not tolerate cruelty.  If you are with a cruel partner you must question your motives in life.

If you are a person who speaks shit in the name of love, please stop it.  You are giving love a bad name.  Love is sensitive to its reputation on Earth.  It is sensitive to the lies you speak in its name.  If you are spending time fucking people for a living and calling it ‘making love’, please stop it.  You are lying.  And for god’s sake, stop believing that you are ‘making love’.  You are not.  Love has NOTHING to do with fucking someone.  You are insulting Nature when you choose to pretend that it has.

 

 

 

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Boredom – Blog No. 34

boredquotesHow do you prevent yourself from morphing into that most heinous of beasts; the cause of boredom?  That bore that comes of common complacency, and the bore that you become to yourself when you refuse to use your life for the purpose it was built?  Your life was built for your self-expression.  If you fail to express yourself – anywhichwayhow you can manage it – you fail at your core purpose.  Self-expression and self-esteem are inextricably linked – do not forget that.

Boring is tiring.  It is a decimator.  Boring is adhering religiously – yes, religiously – to a certain set of circumspect rules that you allow to govern your life.  You should stand up for yourself more.  You should stand up to yourself more.  We’re tyrants.  Each one of us.  That is perhaps no comforting thought, but it is fact.  When you learn to meet and greet frequently your menace you will find yourself more able – and better-equipped – to face your demons.  Demons are in fact not as terrifying as we make them out to be to ourselves.  They all have their reasons, they all have a message to share.  It is in watching their behaviour(s) that you will find resolution, if you choose to use their (very manageable) resources to your benefit.  Again – that choice is up to you.  Deny that you have demons and I will laugh.

Back to boring.  Boredom.  A low boredom threshold is not a sign or symbol of a maladjusted human being.  It is the sign of someone who will not tolerate mediocrity in either their own lives, or those of the people they allow to influence their days.  We all allow someone to influence our days.  A friend, a dead someone, an abusive memory made by one of the ego-tamers in our lives.  We all meet those – and believe me, we need them.  Ego-tamers are like gifts from the gods.  Learn to recognise them for who they are and celebrate their attention.  Ensure that you do not confuse an ego-tamer with an abuser.  They are very different creatures.

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Role-playing – Blog No. 19

Dice and Poker Chips on Game TableConsider yourself a player.   A life-player.  You are one.  You cannot think that life is not a game.  It is an elaborate game of chance.  How exciting is the notion that you can change totally the direction of your everyday by doing one small thing differently?  That is some clout.  Like touching the steering wheel at 220km/h on the autobahn.  The smallest nudge has big implications.  How comfortable are we accepting that we are all role-players?  I think a great many people are either in denial, or are unable to reconcile their own manipulation with themselves.  We are all manipulators.  Every single one of us.  How skilled we are at manipulating is testimony to the teachers we had as children.  We learned from watching our parents manipulate each other.  We learned from being manipulated.  Even as a child you know when you are being manipulated.  It is impossible not to feel coercion.  You can hide from it, or hide it from yourself, but in every exchange you have with another there is some form of manipulation underway.  It’s about wants and needs.  We all want our needs met.  How closely do we pay attention to the needs of others?  Perhaps not closely enough.  But we are all built from the same basic stuff.  In that way we start life equal.  We are all of an egg, a sperm.  But we are equal only at the point before fertilization.  After fertilization it becomes clear how successful our genetic coding is – because we are not genetically equal by any stretch of the imagination.  It depends how far our parents’ bodies had evolved by the time we were conceived.  It depends how good the best of each parent actually was at the time of conception.  We have unique patterns of personality, as individual as our experience of the world.  We are not the same, but we are one.  We are part of the diversity, our thoughts are part of the far-reaching collective unconscious to which we all have access.  We are alone in our perception of the world and alone in our expression thereof, but in each of us is the same driving nature, we all face the same need to self-actualise.  How much time do you spend ruminating on life with the great masters?  You should meet them in your head.  One by one.  They all live there.  You have to learn how to speak each one’s language.  In fact you cannot appreciate your own mother-tongue until you learn another language.  Each language houses a different reality.  We need to share our learning and celebrate our diversity.  We need to take on the roles we create for ourselves and play them to the best of our ability.  There is no coincidence in your being where you find yourself.  You have carved for yourself the niche in which you find yourself confined.  If you are confined, you need to free yourself.  Or you need to be free of yourself.  The self is a great oppressor.  It, too, is an efficient manipulator.  But celebrate that.  It is your choice to benefit from your own experience.  It is your choice to learn who you are and to make yourself stand out by virtue of your understanding of life’s lessons.  You were made to do something.  Find out what it is by seeing where you have sent yourself.

You will find that some of you are more refined than others.  Some of you understand life better.  It depends how emotionally intelligent you are.  You need to foster emotional intelligence.  You bring it up in you, like a child.  You cannot play the life game until you tend to your inner child.  It holds the dice.  You know how powerful the drive of the subconscious when the inner child is in control?  It is something to behold.  That is always something to think about before you switch to auto-pilot.  Let your subconscious speak, but perhaps do not let it act for you.  You can never guarantee the way an encounter with the ego will go.

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