Ego is much more of a problem in modern society than conspiracy.

Genius exists in the world, thank God. You’re welcome. Nobody did Einstein’s work for him, even though his circumstances were humble. If it’s getting harder to become famous, that’s only because there’s so much talent in the modern world and so much specialization that it’s hard for any one single person to have broad up-to-date generalized knowledge, much less stand out from the crowd, except possibly as an entertainer. What does that tell you? Bring on the clowns. Evolution, whether biological nor cultural, is not a straight simple path. Ego needs nothingness the same way Christianity needs Buddhism.

Ego raises its ugly head like a shark at the beach,

drawing fire if not blood for whatever it fails to accomplish with pure fright. Put enough ego in the car’s tank to get in running, then cut it back before it chokes the engine out. Making a thousand minor adjustments is much easier than making a single huge cataclysmic adjustment. Keep the carbs clean and the engine tuned. Ego is like profit motive. You need some to get you going, but you don’t want to indulge in it. It’s the strategically placed carrot perched directly in front of your face to keep you turning the treadmill even though you’re really not even hungry. Even if you don’t really need the money, you still need the profit as compensation for effort expended, reward for a job well done. If you want to give something away free, then you’ll have no shortage of takers. How can you know that someone appreciates your efforts, if they won’t even flip you a dime for your time? Ego is like that, something to pump you up, imagining yourself in exalted situations, just to get yourself out of bed and maybe half-way there, on a good day.

Discover the ego gene

and molecular biology is now on to something, the junction of nature and culture, the nature of self-perception reduced to code and transcript. What you perceive in others usually is what you find in yourself, reducing the usefulness of perception. If you can get past perception and cultural affectations and down to underlying pre-dispositions, then maybe new options would open up for altering them, something besides drugs, that is. Drug use is probably more effective at altering perceptions of others than it is at altering behavior of the user. Experimental and recreational drug use is an attempt to approach the speed of light in thought and perception, just like back home where the lights burn 24/7 with a laser-like intensity that approaches infinity. The speed of thought might actually be first to break the light barrier, premonitions and psychic activity providing raw material for investigation. Is thought a dimension all its own? If so, is it a natural or created one? Weigh yourself down with food to keep yourself grounded in a world without weight nor wisdom.

Put something heavy in a light format,

a spoonful of something sweet to jazz up the bitter pill. Soften the tragedy of self-consciousness by giving it an ego to coddle and hug. The face in the mirror keeps looking back increasingly suspiciously. Religion may have the answers to a thousand questions that keep popping up so regularly that it must be more than coincidental, but I doubt it. Religion can only deal with certainties, and those are very few. Put something hard in a soft place and gift-wrap it for future generations to come, the seeds of memory, the fruit of immortality. These are the things that humans do, species specific, above and beyond the duties of genus, aspiring to the heights of genius, destined to settle for something less, a graveyard for egos. You study and slave, you scrimp and save, you sweat and sacrifice, postponing personal pleasures, giving your godly gifts, just to end up alone and afraid in a corner in a room in a building in a neighborhood in a city in a state of despair, in a country on a continent of a world in a universe that really doesn’t care. You take your love when and where you find it. You give your love to anyone who’ll have it.

INTERNAL BORDERS

We all walk the edge of a fragile border dividing dimensions, but many of us also walk a fragile edge of inner consciousness. For the poet this can be an asset if controllable but still accessibIe. I know I can keep a poetic edge on my tongue’s knife when the drugs start running out, I just don’t know if I can keep an edge when the money rolls in. I probably don’t have to worry about that, though, do I? Drugs expand the mind and the ego beyond recognition. Some ego is good, even necessary, but too much removes you from the normal circles of creative flow, and you start looking for somewhere and someone on whom to lay the blame. Alcohol is safer and more sociable, if less, uh, ‘quantum’. Alcohol greases the wheels of creative derangement a step at the time, drug of choice, $1 a pop, straight to the vein to the heart. Nervous systems are there for warning of impending danger, not juking for maximum thrill. Drugs can short the system out, rather than smoothing it out or lifting it up. Often I’d say good-bye to everyone present before toking up, just in case I forgot in the heat of inspiration.

EGO

Ego extrapolated leads to cultural self-righteousness.  This is what the West is doing, assuming that it is superior, given its preeminent position in the world over the last five hundred years.  That ignores its total lack of eminence for the preceding thousand years.  Whatever the greatness of Greece and Rome, they were no greater than many others were.  But they were ours.  Egypt, Sumeria, Persia, India, and China were theirs.  They all overestimated their greatness, made grave mistakes, and had to start all over again.  Of course, some mistakes are so grave that you can’t dig your way out.  We played God once before with the Bomb, splitting atoms just for the Hell of it, the absolute Hell.  Now we’re inside his genes, cutting and splicing as if it were nothing more than a Hollywood blockbuster, special effects, busting blocks and rearranging them as if it were all a game.  Ostensibly, we might cure some diseases, but what problems might we cause in the process of curing another?  This is the problem of egotism, personal or cultural; it knows no limits.  It can create great art and great entertainment without end, great families and great cultures.  It can also destroy everything that it creates, and more.  Cracking the code is one thing; re-arranging it is another.  The temptation is just too great and probably won’t be resisted.