In Praise of Ego

Thomas Moore






The wonderful dancer and choreographer Martha Graham puts this clearly:

It strikes me as miraculous that the same song, say, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, can be played following the same fundamental harmonic and melodic structure, and yet be a rendition immediately recognizable as unique to Oscar Peterson, or Bill Evans, or Erroll Garner, or George Shearing, or Marian McPartland. Each of these master pianists encounters the song in the depths of their soul, and allows the life force to flow through their particular feelings and sensibilities, as well as through the storehouse of theory, voicing, and dynamics that they have nurtured throughout their lifetimes. The beliefs, thoughts, ideas, knowledge, and feelings arising from one’s life experience coalesce into the person one is. The ego then becomes a unique conduit for the perception and the creation of beauty.

But often, the fruitful depths of our hearts are blocked when ego dons a rigid and controlling mask. When our patterns of consciousness become encapsulated by ego, they can be manhandled into the service of our competitive and fearful need for material success and acceptance. The authentic self is distrusted and relegated to the background of consciousness.  Our ego can then take over the executive function of our lives, and do its best to run the show in an attempt to produce a life that conforms to cultural norms or even to the shibboleths of the “spiritual” seeker.

Much has been written of the ego’s usurpation of our vital and creative energy, even to the point of advising us “to kill the ego!” Gabriel Marcel, however, offers an arresting insight. He speaks of the ego as being “rooted in anguish rather than in love. Burdened with myself, plunged in this disturbing world, sometimes threatening me, sometimes my accomplice, I keep an eager lookout for everything emanating from it which might either soothe or ulcerate the wound I bear within me, which is my ego.” I find it helpful to think of my ego as a wound in my heart, a wound that does not need to be warred against, but reassured and comforted. Sometimes, I think, it serves me well–when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. We do, after all, spend a significant amount of time navigating the demands of ordinary human life. But at those numinous times when life calls for our co-creation, whether with a field of purple flowers, or Somewhere Over The Rainbow, or an intimate conversation with one’s significant other, or the creation of the magnificent window at Chartres Cathedral at the top of this page, then it is ego’s turn, not to die, but to become permeable and translucent, allowing the power of creative love to flow through the unique prism of who we are in that very moment. In the artful living of life, ego, spirit, and soul together flower into an aperture through which Beauty shines upon the world.

Martin Buber tells the story of Rabbi Zusya “when he said, a short while before his death: ‘In the world to come I shall not be asked “Why were you not Moses?” I shall be asked: “Why were you not Zusya?”

That, I think, says it all.

8 thoughts on “In Praise of Ego

  1. Michael

    A really beautiful, and I think important, piece. I think too often the effort to overthrow the ego results in a stifling of the natural embodiment and expression of the universal through the personal. Where else can this occur, but through the medium of one’s own life? I am repeating, poorly, what you have said so artfully above, but I couldn’t help it… Thank you.



  2. Kate Kitchens

    Thank you for the uplifting post! Your perspective deeply resonates with me. I sometimes make up a story in my mind that tells me it’s shameful when my ego emerges–even when it emerges in healthy ways.

    On another note, I still remember you playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at some venue in Japan! Every time I hear that song that memory resurfaces.


  3. Kate Kitchens

    Thank you for writing this post! Your perspective deeply resonates with me. I often make up the story in my mind that it’s shameful when my ego arises–even when it arises in a positive way.




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