Who’s That Whose Talking, Anyway?

Yesterday we were discussing beginnings. Starting at the beginning. Yesterday is just that. Today is now. How are you going to start today? Like yesterday?

In The Man of Destiny, George Bernard Shaw shows us the twenty seven year old Napoleon attacking all the courses of his meal simultaneously with his left hand while marking military positions on a map with his other hand. He calls for some red ink. The landlord of the inn says “Alas! Excellency, there is none.”

Napoleon answers, “Then kill something and bring me its blood.” Grinning, the host replies that there is nothing save the general’s own horse, the sentinel, the lady upstairs and his wife. Napoleon says, “Kill your wife.”

“Willingly, your Excellency,” replies the man, “but unhappily I am not strong enough. She would kill me.”

“That will do equally well,” says Napoleon.

A great playwright like Shaw knows how to grab attention from the time the curtain goes up. He doesn’t have to grab the audience by the lapels. In Act I, at the beginning, the playwright already has the audience’s attention.

What’s your own hook? How are you going to start this act? Who speaks first? How early was the outcome determined?

If that damn voice in your head is telling you things you don’t want to hear, don’t feed it.

What started me on this path, after initially searching to reunite with who I am, was in learning the voice in my head is really my ego. It’s subconscious thought, and even though it’s mainly negative, there were “rewards” the ego took from it. Negativity made it stronger, by feeding into the things that reinforced it. Intellectually, I already knew that. Day to day, however, I had forgotten that.

It’s a daily battle. I keep catching myself listening to that madding construct of ego-drivel. Except now I am conscious it’s my subconscious ego talking. And its starting to lose control over my emotions.

Yesterday, for the first time in so very long, I felt joy. There was no event that precipitated this feeling. I found myself tapping my fingers to Yael Naim’s New Soul while driving around doing errands. I smiled. It struck me, how expansive I felt. How in tune I was. I became aware I was joyful, and just then, how long it had been, and then, how I wanted more joy in my life. And then the voice in my head said, ‘Thank you for this simple reminder of the joy of Being.’

p.s. Yael Naim’s only other English language song is a remake of Toxic.