Ego climbing

Monte Albán, the South Platform

Any effort that has self glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster. Now we are paying the price. When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are , you almost never make it. And even if you do it’s a hollow victory. In order to sustain the victory, you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true an someone will find out. That’s never the way.

To the untrained eye, ego climbing and self less climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference ! The ego climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step show he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be ‘here’. What he’s looking for what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that becaue it is all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goals to be external and distant.

Robert Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance