EGO AS GOVERNMENT

It was Stuart Wilde who first alerted me to the similarities between Ego and Governments.

Governments and Egos both came into being when we sold out on our author-ity, and allowed surrogates to take over the running of our lives. They both get the job by making promises that our  lives will somehow get more, better and different. Neither egos nor governments are equipped to deliver what they promise, but they do a good job of spin and camouflage, and it is often not until our lives have become something of a trainwreck that we even consider the possibility that perhaps we should step in and take over once again.

The knowledge of a direct relationship between ego and authority gives a whole new measure of meaning to the adage "We get the governments we deserve." As we are with "authority", so we are with aspects of our selves. What I think and feel about Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Mike Rann, Johnny Howard or even the local parking cop is very much a part of what I think and feel about myself.

Governments, just like egos, strengthen their grip on us by presenting to us trumped-up troubles and crises in such a way that we think we can't fix them on our own. We secretly dread that we're too insignificant, too inadequate, too under-resourced, and too ignorant to do it alone.. Governments (and egos)  agree with our own deepest self-appraisal, and see to it that we individually remain small, inadequate, under-resourced and ignorant. Watch how they promote actual divisiveness, scarcity (except for themselves), reliance on external agencies, poverty and ignorance. They get away with it because we secretly already believe that we are insignificant and powerless, and we let them do it to us.

Governments struck a deal eons ago with religions -- "We'll keep them scared, ignorant and poor, you keep them guilty; that way we've always got them under control." In 60,000 years of human experience nothing much has changed, has it?

But we buy into these fictions. In order to survive, or maybe just out of apathy and laziness, we give away our power and endorse every government's/ego's unbridled control over our affairs. We did not do that in one apocalyptic moment; it happened in tiny, incremental, everyday moments when we let go of a small chip of our integrity and vision, thinking that "this little much won't matter". Over time we wandered further and further away from our chosen path, little by imperceptible little. Suddenly now we find ourselves in the mire, way out of sight of home, way out of our depth, and seemingly helpless  Now, when we demand a right to know about things that affect our lives and destinies, we get from both ego and government a performance of ducking, weaving and obfuscating that would make Harry Houdini jealous. Either that, or we are told the information is somehow privileged, and we are not entitled to it; it would not be good for us to know. And we accept that as truth!

I remember a line from "Legends of the Fall" when landowner Antony Hopkins asks the sheriff what he's going to do. The sheriff hedges. Hopkins growls "That badge on your lapel -- that's a badge of public office. Well, I'm one of the public!"

We have allowed the servants to become the masters in our own house. and we have done so with hardly a whimper.

As we are with our egos, so we are with those we give authority to.

Revolution is not the answer. It is an understandable reaction, but ineffective. Humankind has tried resistance and revolt many, many times over, only to find that one tyrant gets replaced by another. The dynamics and the end results stay pretty much the same.

Evolution is the answer, if for no other reason that we know from the evidence that evolution -- a) does not go backwards; b) is not static; and c) works. If you want to change the system, change your mind. When your mind changes, the collective mind moves with it. That is evolution. Bust the servants (ego and government) back to the kitchen, and take up the responsibility for thinking for yourselves, making the choices, delivering the decisions and running the show. Hold your ego and your government respectfully and equally accountable. We might even find that the population of psychiatric institutions, hospitals, prisons and welfare junkets might actually decline. What would the purveyors of pills, potions, penance, tobacco, insurance, religion, psychobabble and other drugs do then?

Such visionary leadership is not likely to be found in parliament house, or in a cathedral, or in boardrooms or business schools, or in a fish'n'chip shop in Ipswich. Those people are not the problem: they are the products and the symptoms of the problem, and they are there because we said "Yes" to the system that puts them there. We create our gods in the image of our egos.

The problem lies over here with me, and with you. First and last. We have sold out our psychic integrity, our own sense of balance, and acuity to Laziness and Apathy. The result is this Collective Insanity that so scares, enrages and frustrates us. Yet we keep on selling our right to mental and spiritual stability, and to an alternate possibility -- handing them over to false gods -- Ego and Charisma.

And we have bought the notion of an impending Doomsday. Back in the '80's, when the bottom dropped out of the Australian stock market and we got the recession "we were meant to have", I was living in Western Australia. Those Sandgopers heard the news alright, but they took no notice. In their reality, Australia had just won the America's Cup, the yanks were coming, and everyone in WA had a project. The place was humming! Similarly at the end of the "noughties", someone on Wall Street sneezed, and the entire Western World went down with pneumonia. And while everyone lay stunned on the canvas, the banks backed their armoured carriers up to federal treasuries and got a nice little cash injection of more of our money so that they could keep paying themselves obscene bonuses. I happened to be in Thailand at the time. Thais heard the news too, but they took no notice. What recession?  Not here thankyou. They got on with their lives, and there wasn't one -- because they chose not to have one.

During the height of last year's so-called Recession, I saw a photo taken on Wall Street. Mindful of the time in the late '20's when bankers started jumping out of windows to their death, somebody in 2009 was holding a placard saying "Jump you fuckers!".

Maybe that's the answer. Leave them to their own games..Take no notice. Walk away. The next time either your ego or a politician cranks up their stuff, do what the aborigines did to John Howard -- turn your back and walk away. Take no notice. It worked;  Howard was gutted. For him, it was the beginning of the end.

Politicians and Egos want to be noticed. They NEED to be noticed. Ignore them. Do something constructive instead. Don't fight them.

Just walk away.

Then (covertly) watch what they do next.