So here I was munching on my toast and scrambeled eggs, reading Happines, a Dutch mindstyle magazine. It's esoteric with a Buddhist touch, yet grounded in that good ole' Dutch no-nonense. The article that caught my attention was an interview with writer and presentator Adriaan van Dis (1946). To the question: 'What do you believe in' he answered:
"I believe in beauty, as comfort and discipline, in doing something with care and love, like baking an apple pie. Personally I find comfort in ritual work, like sweeping or raking. You fix something, especially within yourself... ...But no, I do not believe that there is purpose to our existence. We attach purpose, because we feel the need to have a story, which explains why we are here... ...That's why people create religions, but they should never think that it is the truth."
It set me thinking. This guy is a Buddhist. Someone who, like me, believes in just being rather than seeking the reasons behind it, because that's where the truth to living resides. And so I brought my dishes to the sink, walked upstairs with my cup of cold water and sat down behind my computer ready to write. Only I couldn't. Just as strong as the Muses have their grip on me until I finish writing Simon & Sally, Apollo budged in and set my mind to work on the nature of religion, mankind and ego. I allowed myself to be carried away, as I figured: there is a lot in me that reflects back through my writing, so why not see where it goes?
I came to my personal conclusion that yes, religion is man made, but that perhaps the underlying motivations once all dogma is stripped away are more instinctual to the human condition. After all, don't all religions in principle promote respect of life, love to fellow man and acceptance of freedom for all? (Maybe the latter is a nation building concept...) It got me to separate three distinct levels of consciousness that motivate our actions as human beings: Survival, Ego and Environmental. The first is base to all living beings: the need to perpetuate one's own life through breathing, eating and drinking. The last is highly subjective and personal and based on societal, cutural and religious values of any given geographic area one might find themselves in. But especially the middle one, ego, is a tricky one.
You see, I think ego is what sets man apart from animals. Yet it is a great common denominator among humanity wherever you go. Power, recognition, material gain, rights to do this or that, these are all expressions of ego. Whether you are in downtown New York or Saudi Arabia, France or a small Pacific island. The environmental norms and values might be different, but as a person you still want to be loved, feared, recognized or simply validated as a living being. Having had the privilege of living all over the world and visiting various radically different societies has allowed me to homogenize my own norms and values to such a degree that they don't match with any particular set of cultural values anymore. However, it has laid bare my own ego that much more.
This is great stuff for writing. It allows me as a writer to take a step back from my own environmental trappings, immerse myself into any particular character (much like role playing or acting) and play on raw ego-driven motivations hiding them in metaphors and allegories. Meanwhile as I try to live according to the base Buddhist concepts of karmic conditioning, living in the now and self-reflection I am further encouraged to explore this murky twilight zone of the human condition, called ego, through Simon & Sally's and their coming of age adventures.
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