Now Age Minute - 7.24.09
The Garden of Ego
As the stock market climbs above 9,000, and big banks post big profits, not everyone is feeling the joy. A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press and mtvU showed nearly half of college students questioned felt "down, depressed or hopeless". From the AP report:
"Got stress? Oh, yeah, college students say, what with roommates, GPAs, student loans and all the rest.
But where's the line between feeling simply stressed and being truly depressed?
Eighty-five percent of college students surveyed in an Associated Press-mtvU poll reported feeling stressed in their daily lives in recent months: Worries about grades, school work, money and relationships were the big culprits.
At the same time, 42 percent said they had felt down, depressed or hopeless several days during the past two weeks, and 13 percent showed signs of being at risk for at least mild depression, based on the students' answers to a series of questions that medical practitioners use to diagnose depressive illness.
These students complained of trouble sleeping, having little energy or feeling down or hopeless — and most hadn't gotten professional help. Eleven percent had had thoughts that they'd be better off dead or about hurting themselves."
The words just spilled from my daughter's lips as naturally as can be. "What do you think I should be when I grow up?", she asked. It was not the first time we've had this chat. As she prepares to enter high school, it's a pretty damned appropriate question. This time, however, I became unnerved. I apologized for engaging in the dialogue. I felt nauseous for being part of a conversation which posits that she won't "be" somebody until she aligns herself with a career. It was as if I was an accomplice to a crime. A societal crime to elevate my daughter's ego, at the expense of her spirit. After some thought, I reframed the question, and asked, "how can I help you to discover and express the person you already are?"
The tug of war between ego and spirit is a common thread that connects all of us as human beings. The ego, it seems, resides in the mind. The spirit, in the heart. The ego quantifies, divides, competes, and is driven by fear. The spirit, however, qualifies, connects, harmonizes, and is governed by love. Where America's founding principles reflect the spirit (the pursuit of happiness and freedom), America today massages the ego (the pursuit of money and prestige). While we pride ourselves as Americans for our religious freedom, we have clearly become the Garden of Ego.
Although the Garden has been growing lush during the past generation, as possessions replaced relations, nowhere has the Garden bore more fruit than in the Great Fleecing of 2008-09. Where trillions of dollars were stolen from the American public's treasury, and given (under the guise of rescue) to the biggest and baddest egoists Corporate America has to offer. And while humility and humanity returns to Main Street, as stores shutter, job losses mount, and homes are auctioned, Wall Street is using the money we "lent" them to beat us further in submission, by refusing to loan, increasing banking fees, and jacking up credit card interest rates. The personal poles we each wrestle with has magnified into a war on our social landscape. The American battle between ego and spirit has been joined. Though we defeated tyranny in Europe in World War II, we're now facing evil right here on our home turf. Bin Laden's hate is no match for our homegrown corporate greed.
If you think you've mastered the system, breaking bread at the table of wealth, as you click away on Etrade on your laptop at the local Starbucks, you're being played, too. As reported in today's NY Times,
"It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors’ orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices.
It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets...
...Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer."
In the end, if you're not producing a good or service, are you really participating in the greater economy? Or are you merely gambling in your own, private "EGOnomy"?
Our society has become so unbalanced, weighed towards economics, that we're all forced to fleece each other just to stay afloat. Even my spiritual friends drink from the trough. A day does not pass when I'm not encouraged to take part in a "life changing opportunity". While I don't doubt the benefits of the new super herbal cocktail, I just don't feel the sincerity or authenticity in one's desire to help me to become "financially free". It's New Age Fleece. I know. I've done it. Simply deny the opportunity, and see how deep one's caring for your well-being really goes.
Truth be told, I don't stay awake at night praying to become a millionaire. My pursuit of happiness does not have a price tag. Once I go down that road, my spirit is toast. I don't give a crap what Tony Robbins says. It's just lipstick on a pig.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign spoke to our collective spirit, with the candidate drawing large, passionate crowds, and speaking with a message of hope, change, and optimism ("Yes, we can!"). I drank the Kool Aid. He governs, though, as an ego. That's just the nature of the office. But if Obama sincerely wants to bring about the change he campaigned on, real health care reform (yes, like Canada), serious climate change regulation, and restoration of the rules that prevented banks from becoming "too big to fail", he's going to need to take it to the streets, and govern as he campaigned. Or the revolution will start without him.
Craig Gordon
You say you want a revolution?
Well, you know.
- John Lennon (Paul had no hand in this one)
