I am currently reading a book that Oprah's been promoting the heck out
of: "A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose". It's really,
really interesting. I'm about half-way through and I highly recommend
it. If you want to understand how your own ego works - and how it can
keep you from being happy and/or from finding your life's purpose -
you can't miss this book.
But I stumbled across a couple of pages that had some amazing insights
about celebrities and people who identify with them. If you like,
read the following, and then comment (if you dare!) about whether any
of it applies to Barry or his fans. I know I see myself in it!
***
Ego And Fame
The well-known phenomenon of "name dropping," the casual mention of
who you know, is part of the ego's strategy of gaining a superior
identity in the eyes of others and therefore in its own eyes through
association with someone "im****tant." The bane of being famous in
this world is that who you are becomes totally obscured by a
collective mental image. Most people you meet want to enhance their
identity - the mental image of who they are - through association with
you. They themselves may not know that they are not interested in you
at all, but only in strengthening their ultimately fictitious sense of
self. They believe that through you they can be more. Theey are
looking to complete themselves through you, or rather through the
mental image they have of you as a famous person, a larger-than-life
collective conceptual identity.
The absurd overvaluation of fame is just one of the many
manifestations of egoic madness in our world. Some famous people fall
into the same error and identify with the collective fiction, the
image people and the media have created of them, and they begin to
actually see themselves as superior to ordinary mortals. As a result,
they become more and more alienated from themselves and others, more
and more unhappy, more and more dependent on their continuing
popularity. Surrounded only by people who feed their iflated self-
image, they become incapable of genuine relation****ps.
Albert Einstein, who was admired as almost superhuman and whose fate
it was to become one of the most famous people on the planet, never
identified with the image the collective mind had created of him. He
remained humble, egoless. In fact, he spoke of "a grotesque
contradiction between what people consider to be my achievements and
abilities and the reality of who I am and what I am capable of."
This is why it is hard for a famous person to be in a genuine
relation****p with others. A genuine relation****p is one that is not
dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a
genuine relation****p, there is an outward flow of open, alert
attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting
whatsoever. That alert attention is Presence. It is the prerequisite
for any authentic relation****p. The ego always either wants
something, or if it believes there is nothing to get from the other,
it is in a state of utter indifference: it doesn't care about you.
And so, the three predominant states of egoic relation****ps are:
wanting, thwarted wanting (anger, resentment, blaming, complaining),
and indifference.
-- A New Earth, pp. 82 - 84
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