Being an artist is hard. The promise of true freedom, honest self-expression, and joyful meaningfulness is often met with harsh and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Those obstacles are the Saboteurs to your creativity calling.
“… any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower… will elicit Resistance.” — Steven Pressfield, Writer
There are the outside malignant forces — frustrating and emotionally challenging hindrances that seem to work in collusion to impair your way towards your inner evolution: the boss that hates you; the co-worker whose negative and judgemental outlook/energy pulls you down with him; society’s sometimes unfair or non-sensical legal/bureaucratic barriers to your creative endeavour/ education/entrepeneurship; the lack of start-up money/social connections/privileges that others seem to possess as a birthright; the spouse or partner who fears that your commitment to your craft takes away your commitment to their individual selves; the friends and family who have absolutely no faith in you; the friends and family who like you but only as you are (or were) and prefer that you don’t ever change or grow to become anything that’s different. Like many artists before me and after, I’ve experienced nearly all of the above. They are all difficult obstacles to creative living. We have to fight them, ignore them, weave around them, discard them or sometimes just blow right past them as if they didn’t exist. The creative (genius) must never compromise.
But as nasty as these obstacles can be, they are on the outside, and what matters more significantly is what happens on the inside, in your mind, for the biggest enemy lies within. Writer and creative inspiration extraordinaire Steven Pressfield calls it resistance. Others, more scientifically inclined, might call it entropy. I call it the ego — that invisible force that will do anything and everything to stop you from reaching your fullest potential and thereby denying you and the world of the gift(s) that only you can bring to fruition. It will prevent you from living with truth and honour, teasing you with the allure of pleasure and quick success. It will appease your pride and sense of greed. It will inflame your ambition and endorse conflict and envy. And worse of all, It will turn your passion — the love of your art — into a mere means for the acquistion of material power and social glory should you make it your occupation. And, at the end of it, it will eliminate all your humility and crush any sense of gratitude or empathy for others. The ego is the ultimate saboteur and it resides deep inside your brain. You’ve given it a home the day you developed self-consciousness and brought up to conform to society’s customary rules and traditions. You need to look very closely, with utmost clarity and humility, to even see its shadowy nature as it tries to take hold of you.
“Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.” — Miyamoto Musashi, Samurai/Writer
What can be done about the ego and how can we live with it? Endless books, scientific, spiritual and otherwise, have attempted to answer this question and have yet to offer any real pragmatic solution. Most people aren’t even aware of it or if they are, they’ve come to accept it as an inevitable unchangeable reality. But the real truth is that while the ego is both present and elusive, it is, in reality, like all other mental constructs, nothing more than an idea. It’s a kind of illusory beast we’ve created in our minds that has convinced us to believe that it’s not only real but bigger and more important than anything else in the world, no matter time or place. That’s how smart it is — it’s a master negotiator, a superb accountant and a biting critic. And it will use as much “logic” as possible to convince us to be lazy (like looking for shortcuts), to doubt ourselves or our ideas (such as using extensive rationalizations/analysis to prolong taking action), or to quit while we’re still ahead (so that we never ever finish anything, thus justifying the lack of value in our contribution). Essentially, it’ll do anything to stop us from giving any loving attention to our inner aspirations or destiny.
“The ego mind both professes its desire for love and does everything possible to repel it, or if it gets here anyway, to sabotage it. ” — Marianne Williamson, Writer
And because it turns on as soon as our consciousness is awake, we never rest from it. The ego is always talking, always “working” us. It knows the power of words and likes to come across as both strong and careful, meanwhile bolstering its position by gathering more “in-line” data to give extra strength to its arguments. It breeds insecurity and thus makes us prime targets for propaganda and persuasion from the external forms of sabotage like the doubting friend or family member. Sometimes it might even take the form of false humility like self-loathing. It loves to follow the trend and give in to conformity. It loves tribalism — convincing us that our own family, work tribe, race or nation is above others. It endorses competition and conflict — anger, fear, and aggression make regular appearances — even as it condemns the violence of others who won’t side with its own ideologies.
And, even when the ego recognizes that its solutions or guidance have resulted in failure, it accepts no responsibility because the dark egoic mind likes to look back, not forward. Instead, it prefers to find things to blame, like other people, the government or the “system” rather than focus on what’s been learnt and where the solutions might lie. It always wants us to focus on the things outside of us rather than on the inside, so that we don’t see its machinations. In fact, it’s scared of the new so it always guides us back to the known (tradition) in sacrifice of the new (discovery). But its nastiest trick is that it lures us into thinking we are one, and that it’s here to serve our best interest but in truth it loves only itself, its own self-preservation and entices us to do the same by endorsing individualism, self-preoccupation and self-aggrandizement. In the form of its extreme culmination — narcissism — it destroys all that is kind or creative, and all that is holy or wholesome.
“Thought is on the outside.” — J. Krishnmurti, Philosopher
Once we see the ego for what it truly is — an ILLUSION — we’ll realize and understand that its persuasions, like most of our thoughts, are ultimately identifiable and absurd, no more than irritating, pre-digested chatter disguised as intelligence. Once we see that, we know that they can be overcome and discarded. Like weeds in a garden, they can be extracted even if they should continue to sprout. We need to take a farmer’s mindset of commitment and professionalism. We stay on guard and don’t accept the ego’s lies or compromise our truth. But at the same time, we must realize another truth; that it shouldn’t be surprising that most people lose their battle against the ego. It has craftfully deceived us, so why wouldn’t it deceive others? We must have empathy so that we can also be kind to ourselves. Dealing with saboteurs need not imply stomping out our obstacles with glee or anger because outward violence always begets more inward violence and vice versa. And finally, the most effective statement we can make about the ego is that it ALWAYS makes it both RATIONAL and EASY to be suspicious, dispassionate, or undisciplined towards your creative endeavour, even though giving up your creative passion will ultimately leave you a crater-sized hole of regret that will sit in your heart for the rest of your lifetime. (To be continued)
In Part 2 of Saboteurs and Saviours, we will discuss the ego-opposing forces that empower our creative drive and help us reach our fullest potential.