I am getting ready for another marathon retreat weekend. So, I just started reading Anthony DeMello. The Way to Love. Wow! I've read this before, but it was powerful today:
"... attempt to understand the true nature of worldly feelings...they were invented by your society and your culture to make you productive and to make you controllable..." "And take a look at the people around you. Is there a one of them who is not addicted to these worldly feelings? A single one who is not controlled by them, hungers for them, spends every waking minute of his/her life consciously or unconsciously seeking them?....For they live empty soulless lives."
Yes, part of the reason I stay out of the main stream of American life is to be an individual; not someone programmed by television. Lately, I've been working intensively on my mental. I've come to see how the ego part of my brain is so ruled by attention, approval and fear. And I don't want it to be so.
I can hear the ego's inner yelling whenever I seem to break its rules. I can feel it pushing towards activities which might produce approval, recognition and safety from the authorities at work.
Yet one more race, one more race report, one more series of atta-girls.
But taking another path towards good is possible. I helped someone this week solely because I wanted to be the person I really am behind the ego.
My races this weekend are very small. They are loops around a lake next to a busy airport. I will quietly do my time. I hope to lose myself with the others. I will have some nice conversation, but also spend a good deal of time on my own. I have picked a mantra to keep my mind on.
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