WorryWorryWorryWorryGloomFretWorryMoan
Whatever I perform becomes my identity.
When I perform unhappiness, I embed the unhappiness deeper.
When I rehearse the wretched childhood, the wickedness of others, the neuroses, major and minor, and the bleak future these augur, those sorrows become the world I live in and the impression of me I give others: it becomes the impression I give myself of me.
The dark twists of my victimhood have always felt like the most authentic part of me. However, the reverse is true. They're the mask. They're the face of my ego hiding who I really am.
Whilst I believe in the ego, the niceness, goodness, and hope I project is also a false mask, but it’s a mask masking another mask. What lies under the first mask (which is coincidentally authentic to the true me) is not truth but an even more mendacious mask: the mask of death and decay. The ego’s great trick is to have me believe that darkness is the only reality, and everything else is a pale, substanceless charade.
My ego loves being centre stage. In fact, it's very intolerant of being anywhere other than the limelight. It stamps its little foot, suggesting I'm somehow betraying myself by not spraying its discharge everywhere.
My job is to remove the first mask to reveal the ego, then remove the second mask, the ego, to reveal the truth, which is the true source of the first mask, the original of which the first mask is the copy.
I do have to deal with the ego, using quiet, clinical means, using the Steps and in conjunction with my sponsor and my peers; however, when I am in my right mind, I do not allow this process to spread through my consciousness or govern my speech and deportment like an uncontained gas.
I might have to quietly deal with the symptoms with friends, by briskly sharing the facts of what the ego has been up to and its effects on me, but complaining or eliciting the pity of others no more treats the problem than coughing treats tonsilitis.
Cough, sure, but take the antibiotics. And stifle the cough, suck a lozenge, or leave the room if the coughing threatens to disturb the concert.
Coughing is not a musical instrument.
I refuse to allow the ego to hijack the present and betray it by projecting its fantasies of the past and the future.
This is especially true when I feel rotten: in acting and especially speaking way better than I feel, I am drawn upwards. Acting and speaking out of the vision of the path ahead draws me along that path and becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Not a lie but an architect’s vision.
Unless I am actively working a Step to defuse and uproot the ego, I keep the focus of my mind and my discourse, in my dealings with others and in meetings, firmly off the problem and onto the solution.
When a problem arises, vent the sump, and resume operations.