'"Techno-hubris" is a term I read a couple days ago as the media tried to explain why Japan would build nuclear reactors along quake fault lines. Watching and listening to the reports of nuclear reactors failing as a result of the 8.9 quake, many of us just wonder why would they take such a horrific risk? The answer is so human, it seems almost silly considering the consequences - the ego of our individual self easily falls prey to hubris.
Hubris in it's simplest definition indicates pride but actually, hubris is much more than the sensation of feeling 'proud', hubris is the pride of the ego - the arrogant, presumptive pride that takes our creative wondering what would happen if I .... and runs with into the world not taking into consideration the long term consequences to a world containing more than just "me."
We humans are funny and complex creatures. We want to succeed with our new creations: it is our nature to desire to bring our ideas into Life, but we do not necessarily enjoy the process of blood, sweat and tears which is the true path of all creativity. Our ego provides an easy way out of this dilemma. "Forge blood and sweat, just do it and whatever you do is okay because you did it! Because it is your unique creation it is wonderful." Those are the words of our ego. The older I get the more obvious it becomes that my ego is about 8 years old!
Of course there's the reality that doing something new and difficult often requires an attitude of just do it! in order to begin. As a place of beginning something new and scary just do it! is fine. Why doesn't it work for us to continue creating from this beginning place? Because that initial place of just do it is full of fear and fear is the fuel of the ego's hubris.
The hubris of our ego is found in the next part of the phrase of just do it - the part we don't actually say aloud. The complete phrase is just do it and damn the consequences! Our ego really does not care what about consequences: it's MY brilliant creation so it's just fine! See why I say that my ego is about 8 years old. An eight year-old really does not care how their behavior impacts other people or life in general. An eight year-old just wants to do what they want to do.
The ego of my inner eight-year old is my human fault line. I call it my fault line because an eight year-old, no matter how intelligent they may be, has little experience and therefore no capacity for true wisdom which is the ability to combine knowledge and experience and then apply what results judiciously. Judiciousness implies consideration of what may be affected by my behavior. Eight year-old children are not naturally judicious as they are almost always willing to damn the consequences in order to get what they want.
When I build life according to the demands of my ego which by nature is willing to damn the consequences, I am building along weakness: the places within myself that are fearful of being worthy of acceptance; the places within myself that are terrified that I will never get what I really want; the places within myself the perceive life as a limited resource - these are the places within myself that have experienced disappointment, humiliation and rejection.
Disappointment, humiliation and rejection are personal experiences of pain that create 'cracks' in our psyche. Our personal response to these 'cracks'; these openings or splittings within our Spirit have the capacity to define how we experience life in general.
There are two primary means of dealing with Spirit-cracking caused by pain. One is an ego response which has an immediate infusion of the sensation of "strength", which is arrogance: "they" are stupid: "they" are less than I am and therefore do not understand me: "they" are not are deserving of what I am, therefore what happens to them is of no consequence. If we respond to our pain by agreeing with those ego responses then an attitude of presumptive arrogance develops as part of our perception of living. This is how hubris can begin to take hold within a person - or nation.
Hubris may appear outwardly strong with it's swagger and aggression but since it is built on the weaknesses of the many guises of fear, hubris is always internally weak. Swaggering or not, hubris is a fault line capable of creating 'earthquakes' within our Spirit when too much pressure is exerted. These personal earthquakes are not pretty: rage, greed, cruelty are outward manifestations - deep depression and anxiety may be the inward manifestations. Being human, none of us are exempt from these expereinces at sometime in our living.
The other response available to the pain of disappointment, humiliation and rejection is that of seeking the ways and means of discovering and creating love. Love is the opposite of fear. Oddly however, we frequently perceive love as "weak" because love tells us to respond to our painful realizations from the point of view of imperfection.
Love suggests an awareness that each and every one of us is imperfect and therefore capable of hurting others. Love evokes the awareness that we also have caused others to experience pain, disappointment and humiliation and therefore our own healing requires the discovery of forgiveness and compassion directed toward our own self. When we are able to understand the need to forgive ourself, we begin to create the compassion and forgiveness needed to extend outward to forgiveness of other people.
The route for discovering forgiveness and compassion is one entailing our blood, sweat and tears. Forgiveness which creates understanding and therefore compassion is difficult - it is just plain hard work. Work we do not want to necessarily undertake because the work itself is painful since it requires us to let go of our outward persona suggesting that we are not like "they" are. Our ego is quite vocal about telling us to avoid pain at all costs because it does not wish to lose it's position of superiority in life.
Courage, which is true strength, can only be found by digging beneath the ego's persona because courage is found in the heart. Paradoxically, it is the perceived 'weakness' of choosing the difficult work of love that creates true strength.
Building our lives along the crevasses within our heart by choosing the route of compassion and forgiveness is paradoxically, the way of creating true strength. When we choose to perceive our pain as that which is part of being human rather than as that which was 'done' to me, our world widens and we come to understand that we are all connected in this imperfect world.
Each time - each moment - no matter how small or how infrequently, that I am able to choose this perception of living: love rather than arrogance, I am filling in those 'cracks' in my psyche with love rather than fear. Little by little, fear is transformed into the creativity of love.
Creativity arising from the heart - from the courage of one's heart - always adds beauty to the world. Perhaps as we people become more and more sophisticated in what we are able to create, we might consider a new criteria for birthing things into the world: will this idea - or action - or new creation add beauty of goodness to Life?
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