I Am Not the One That Writes
By: Andee Scarantino
(4 min read)
A few weekends ago, I tracked a friend’s husband in his full Ironman in Waco, Texas. Excited, I thought, “I want to be an Ironman.”
Why? Because I’m an EGOMANIAC!
Pause.
You probably have some sort of idea in your mind about what an egomaniac is, and I’m going to let you have that for the purpose of reading this blog.
I’m here to talk about the places where I am completely detached; the places my ego takes a back seat.
My athletic ability is 100% ego.
I use my performance in sports to stack myself against others. There’s a ton of “me” and “mine” in my sporting performance. Yet, in other areas of my life, I’m spiritually detached from all of it. In those areas, there’s little, if any competition.
For example, in coaching and even in writing, I firmly believe I am not the doer at all.
I believe myself to be the conduit that Tao works through. (Tao, Brahman, God, the universe– whatever the fuck you want to call it. The thing that can’t be named. The space between the words. The absence of thought between the thoughts.)
When a client comes to me, it isn’t me who’s helping them. I’m just the space holder, which help flows through.
It has been my experience that when a client comes to me with a new problem I have yet work with someone on, the universe (by way of my reticular activating system) provides me with all of the supplementing resources I need to make sure that client gets served.
I must be keen to receive that information, and I’m in practice to pause and listen. However, despite all the “right” things I do to market myself and my business, right down to writing in various media outlets, sending emails, podcasting, etc., it seems all of my clients have come to me out of what seems like thin air.
How can I attach myself to that?
When I write, it isn’t me that is doing the writing.
I write for a few hours each morning, and I need complete quiet to do so. It flows from the ether to my mind, to my arthritic fingers (I’ve been eating a lot of inflammatory crap lately,) to this medium, and ultimately to your eyes. “I” have little to do with it.
The Beatles (specifically George Harrison) wrote the song “I, Me, Mine,” released in 1970 on the album Let it Be, about the ego.
“All through the day
I, Me, Mine
I, Me, Mine
I Me, Mine”
It was influenced by both George’s experiences with LSD, and the teachings of Hindu Monk Swami Vivekananda, that an individual’s goal in life is to realize their divine qualities by transcending ego concerns.
(And you thought you were just listening to some playful bubble gum.)
There’s nothing wrong with having an inflated “I,” like the “I” that wants to do the Ironman. It’s when you begin to believe it is YOU that you start living in a lower vibrational state.
Jealousy and competitiveness are lower vibrational states of being rather than the elevated states of the non-attached soul following the path of love.
Humans fuck up because when we make our little “i” a big “I,” everyone else is also a big “I.”
What ends up happening is we stack our big “I” against everyone else’s big “I,” and that’s why we think we’re not as good as someone else. It is why humans tend to take every little thing so damn seriously. (Have you heard Wayne Dyer’s “Rule Number 6?”)
I don’t care about my writing. I do it, and it’s done. I don’t go off reading the words of other humans and see how *I* compare to them. I, quite frankly, do not care.
That would be as ludicrous as trying to compare my pinky finger to someone else’s.
My writing is the ultimate karma yoga, which the Bhagavad Gita talks about as doing your duty and not attaching to it.
If I started to take ownership of my writing, like “I AM THE GREAT ANDEE FUCKING SCARANTINO, THE WRITER,” I would suddenly compare myself to every other writer and compare every piece of writing to every other piece of writing.
I’d start to worry about every little thing I put out into the world and try to TRACE THOSE THINGS to their impact, control who sees them, control how they feel about them, control who doesn’t see them, etc. etc.
And then, I’d begin to judge the writing… And then, I’d begin to judge ME, and I’d begin to attribute my worth and value and EVERYTHING ELSE to this “thing” I take SO FUCKING SERIOUSLY.
“ALLLLLL THROUGH THE DAY, I, ME, MINE!”
And like… it’s not that serious.
And I’m truly not the one doing it.
I’m just here. A bag of flesh that the universe works through. I am the conduit through which the words pass.
“I, me, mine.” Psh.
I’ll save that for the Ironman.
And even then… who cares?
