That darned ego

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Craig

It’s Friday already. Good Friday, in fact. Although, in my experience, saying “Good” in association with “Friday” is kind of redundant.

All that aside, this week has blown by way too quick. Maybe not for you, dear employee, slave to the corporation, now ready to take in a long weekend, but for me, where everyday is like a Saturday unless I choose to get off my butt and do something productive. Being self-employed means that I never have to show up for work if I don’t feel like it – but then I never get paid either.

This week, I got back into an old battle I’ve had with Ego (my little false self in my head). It’s about an addiction I’ve had off and on for about ten years now (gosh, has it been that long?). It’s called Sid Meier’s Civilization, a computer game that steals your mind and body for weeks on end, makes you work long hours with no financial reward, and causes sleep deprivation and other health problems.

Ego can’t get enough of it. And, since I’m human, I often do what Ego tells me to do. I’m learning very slowly.

(I even heard about a guy whose girlfriend gave him an ultimatim: Either start paying more attention to her and less to that game, or she’s gone. And, of course, if you know the game well enough, you know which one he picked. He might still be single, for all I know.)

Let me tell you about Civilization (because I love talking about it). You can play it online against other people, but I prefer to set my own hours and just play it against the computer’s A.I. (artificial intelligence) players. In the game, I build cities and roads and military units, all of which start out very primitive and get more advanced as time progresses from 4,000 B.C. to the present. I can also improve the cities with libraries, religious centres, commerce, etc.

Sounds kind of boring until you get to the part that Ego really loves: I’m playing against other empires on limited land, with limited resources, all of which we need to win the game. There are resources like gems and furs, which make the people happy (particularly the women, I suppose), and resources like horses and iron, which allow military units to suit up and go to war (keeping the men happy).

If a resource exists on someone else’s turf, I can either try and get them to trade it to me (and the A.I. players hate to trade), or I can go to war and take it from them by force.

In the small mind of Ego, this is a great way to live: create a false identity, place it in a limited environment with limited resources, and make it fight other false identities to get as much stuff as possible (all of which doesn’t really exist). Make it stay up late at night, striving, suffering and fighting, and then tell it that this is really fun, and, we should do this all the time.

And we fall for it. Every effing day, we fall for it.

This is Civilization – not the game, now, but the so-called real one that we have built as the human race.

Here we are, Children of God, spiritual beings with unlimited creativity, and we play this game of limitation and scarcity and conflict, telling ourselves this story about how fun it is.

We can turn the game off at any time. We can walk away from the false sense of lack, and decide to play a bigger game of creativity, abundance, compassion and joy. Instead of fighting over that little thing that you have and I want, we can choose to create bigger things together. We can choose to let go of our slavery to the drama of pain, and release our spirits to a grander vision – a world where everyone has enough, because we create enough to go around.

Sounds simple. But it’s not easy. You would think that it would be easy just to stop fighting and relax, but it seems like we have to struggle for that, too. Ego doesn’t just step down when we tell it we don’t want to play the game any more. It’s sneaky. It comes up with lots of compelling reasons why we have to get back into the game (because it’s fun, educational, necessary for survival, etc, etc).

To win the battle against Ego, we don’t have to have a life where we never experience limitation or struggle any more. We just need this one present moment. Right here, right now, I can choose to identify myself as a spiritual being having a human experience, outside the bounds of the Ego.

I am not the player in the game. I am not King Tut of the Egyptians, fighting a war against the Persians. That’s just a game. I am not even Craig Martin, fighting a war against procrastination and dirty dishes. This, too, is just a game.

I am a creator. I made the game, and now I can change the rules.

Today, I choose to let go of lack, stop struggling, and relax into the flow of creativity and inner peace.

Wish me luck.

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Hurry up and Wait

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Craig

Recently I’ve started a few new projects. Some of them are part of a project team, and some are solo projects.

Sometimes I like to work on projects as part of a team. Sometimes I like to do something on my own, without interference.

It so happens that the team projects are more interesting to me now, so I’ve been trying to focus on those instead of my solo projects.

Unfortunately, I have been trying to charge ahead faster than the rest of the team can move at the moment. There are too many things going on behind the scenes to rush it. Other people have a ton of work to do before I can see progress in my area. So I’ve found myself chomping at the bit, as it were.

I’m also part of a group that meets weekly to share intuitive information with each other, about what’s going on in each other’s lives. Advice comes through from “up there” to help us make wiser choices.

The advice for me tonight was that I need to sort out my rushing and my slowing down.

This brought me to realize that I need to focus on moving my solo projects forward, instead of distracting myself with what the team is or is not doing at the moment. I realized that my focus on the team’s activity was a way of ignoring my personal accountability for my own projects, which I have the resources to work on, but which I’ve been avoiding.

Not consciously avoiding, mind you – it’s just that every time I remember that I have to work on my own project, I find myself doing other things that are not nearly as important.

I believe some cultures refer to this practice as “procrastination.”

I prefer to call it…um… re-prioritizing.

Although that’s a way of distancing my accountability as well.

Time to call it what it is.

And stop blogging about it.

And just do it.

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Everyday Miracles

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Craig

The last couple days, I’ve had a couple experiences of connection with higher wisdom, or divine source, or whatever you want to call it. It’s basically a miracle.

I mean, you could just call it a good mood. We don’t need to make it sound like I had some special experience that’s better than anything you had today. That would just ruin it.

The truth is, a connection to God (yes, the ‘G’ word) is one of the most natural experiences we could possibly have as a human being. And miracles would be considered normal if we didn’t avoid them so much of the time.

What gets in the way of that is my Ego telling me that I’m a small, separate individual in a sea of individuals, and that we’re all competing for limited resources. This is illusion. It is a wall that my Ego puts between me and other people to try and keep me “safe.” But all it does is create needless suffering. What the Ego calls “self-protection” is actually self-hate, since it cuts me off from love and from my Source.

Now I’m coming back around to this notion that I can be connected to my spiritual source, without all the baggage that I’ve accumulated over the years. I’m allowed to experience miracles every moment of every day. I’m allowed to see the voice of Ego for what it is: a frightened little victim mentality that believes in hate and fear where none exist. I can simply observe that voice, and let it go, without being drawn into it.

I invite you to join me today in opening ourselves up to love, connection and peace. Let’s set aside our small selves today, even if just for a moment, and allow miracles to have their way with us.

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Posted in Ego, God | Leave a comment

A duty to passion

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Craig

Over the last twenty years or so, we have seen many ups and downs in the corporate economy, and a corresponding number of people leaving the big corporations to start small businesses of their own. There are always hundreds of opportunities available for those with an entrepreneurial bent, from the sketchy “opportunities” of multi-level marketing (which often cost you more than you make), to the simple act of turning a hobby into a business (although “simple” does not always mean “easy”).

But times are changing. Fast.

What used to be an “opportunity” is now more like an imperative. With many Fortune-500 companies on the edge of bankruptcy, and employee fear changing to panic, we no longer have the luxury of sitting in the cubicle dreaming about that some-day enterprise. The Universe is giving us a slap upside the head, almost shouting at us, to get off our butts and go do what we are here to do.

The trouble is, our fear of doing something new and challenging, outweighs our fear of growing old in the cubicle-farm.

Despite those fears, each one of us has a mission in this life that we can’t ignore forever. It shows up as an interest, a hobby, a passion – and is usually stuffed down beneath layers of fear and pragmatic thinking. “I can’t open a day-care,” you say, “even though I’d love to. Day-cares don’t make any money. I have to think of my family. I make over $40,000 a year at my dead-end job, so I better stick to it.”

Or the musician who doesn’t think her songs are good enough.

Or the woodworker whose carvings sit in his garage, admired only by his closest friends and family.

You know who you are.

Our passions are yearning to be free, to be made manifest in the world of form. If they could only be let out, they would fuel us in a life of creativity and joy, giving us back far more energy than they use. But stuffed down beneath practical fears, they suck the life out of us.

And we don’t know where the energy is going. So we consume more products and services – alcohol, movies, games, junk food – to distract us from the pain and give us energy to keep going.

With a constant depletion of energy going to maintaining our fears, it’s no wonder that we are addicted to sugary sweets and energy drinks, which are contributing to a pandemic of health problems in our society.

We can’t keep living this way. Whether you start a business of your own, or join a company or non-profit that you love – whatever the form it takes – you simply must allow your passions to guide you. It is time to live your life’s mission. There is no more time to waste in answering the call. This planet needs you. Yes, you.

And if you need any support on making that a reality, there are people around that can help. Just ask.

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Who needs arts funding?

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Craig

I’m about to say something really unpopular.

Now, before I dive right into that shallow pool, I want to preface my remarks. I’m a writer, and I also enjoy acting (as a hobby). I volunteer at a local improv theatre. I was a member of the Writers Guild of Alberta for a bit. I have lots of friends who are artists, actors and writers. I believe that more people should express themselves artistically. And I just bought my third ticket to Burning Man, one of the biggest, most outrageous art shows on Earth.

But I don’t believe that the government should fund the Arts.

I’m almost afraid to publish this post, considering the people I hang out with. I might just log into Facebook tomorrow and discover my Friends list has been cut in half. (Then again, how many people on my friends list actually read this blog? Maybe I’ll be saved by my own lack of popularity.)

So, if artists and theatres and poets don’t get public funding, how will they ever survive?

Let me tell you about an amazing art gallery I visited today: the Venturion Gallery on 11 Ave, between Macleod Trail and 1 St SE in Calgary (also known as the Shwan Galleries, after the starring artist).

What makes this gallery so incredible is not the art. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the art. In fact, it’s in high demand. But other galleries also have good art.

What I absolutely love about this gallery – what made me want to take time out of my day and talk about it on my blog – is how they not only support themselves without public funding, but they also have a business model set up to make substantial donations to charity, and amazing returns to their shareholders. (Side note: they haven’t actually delivered the cash yet, but the business model is very solid.)

How do they do it? By running it as a business. And by breaking the rules on how galleries are supposed to make their money.

First of all, they don’t sell prints – they lease prints to businesses, who then write off the monthly expense. Then Venturion takes those monthly payments, writes a cheque to charity, and saves the rest to give back to their investors.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but I’m not going to go into the details here. For more information, visit http://www.venturion.ca – and if you go down there, tell them Craig sent you.

But back to the arts funding thing again: I believe that the Arts should be funded by people that love the art. If you love the theatre, buy tickets. If you love paintings, buy one. If you love books, buy books. If you love movies, go see movies.

Good art that people love, tends to make money. Bad art that nobody cares about, does not make money.

And if nobody cares enough to buy it, then that tells me we don’t need it. If I write a book and nobody buys it, I’m not going to complain that the government won’t fund my hobby; if I want to sell books, I have to write books that provide value to people.

Governments make a very poor judge of what makes a good book or piece of art. They should just stay out of it, and allow enthusiasts to decide what they like and what they should pay for.

Just my opinion.

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