…"I" OF THE EGO…

Stage 32 / Thursday 28 May / From Miradoux to Marsolan / 26 km

 

Arriving in Miradoux, I entered a new department, Le Gers. But formerly, this whole region that I’ve been crossing since I got over the Garonne river was called la Lomagne. Today I’ll pass by the town of Lectoure which was its central bastion and historic capital. This is the land of white garlic: here they produce nearly two-thirds of the garlic consumed in France, and you can smell it! I breath deeply the subtle odors of the bunches hanging from bars in the hangars I’m passing by. I sniff, and this act of smelling is another way of proving my existence, my essence, my being. What is this “I” which is sniffing, what is this “me” who breathes? Who am I between what changes in me and what is ever-present? My education, my experience, my history constantly expand, slowly evolving and being shaped by my “desires to be” (just coast along) and my efforts to “be what I should be” (to behave properly).

 

What is not me is still me; for example, the corner of the Alps which saw my birth more than these Pyrenees that I glimpse on the horizon to the south for the first time. And yet, these new mountains between France and Spain will soon be added to the experiences accumulated in my self. And yet, objectively, my “me” is not in the nature of these summits, it exists simultaneously everywhere and without precise locality. Except that something in me, on the one hand, connects me to the entire universe that surrounds it, and on the other hand, this something would not be what it is if there had been no one else in the world! Because then I would not even need a name which is today such a part of my identity …

 

My self is thus defined by differentiation from all that is not me. But it seems attached by numerous connections to the continuum of a same human essence (maybe even a cosmic essence). Is it possible to liberate my “self”, my authentic and profound being, from my “ego”? This “ego” that one opposes to the “alter,” is the image which I hold onto as a body differentiated from others. But in wanting too much to concentrate on my image, this ego becomes a source of narcissism by detaching me from others. It also becomes a source of incompleteness, for my body changes with time. This body deteriorates, and if I try to improve the image it projects, I’m undoubtedly going to hide behind masks to appear better in the eyes of others. And in doing so, I will distance myself in a scabrous way from the true “me” such as I am.

 

The ego, this is what takes offense at what is no longer. It is tempted by the desire to be, sometimes by the duty to be: it’s the “I” which, by the senses, distances itself in space from what surrounds it; it is the “I” which compares itself by memory to what it has been; it is the “I” who by will-power projects itself into the future to what it would like to be. This trickster who manipulates me, capable of interpreting several personalities over time (and sometimes even several time a day!), is not the intimate secret me, unchanging and timeless, the central axis of my being, ultimate identity which refuses to “appear” and to project itself.

 

This unique “me” attaches little importance to the “I” which is multiple and time-dependent: “I’m walking on the path, I feel my sore muscles from yesterday, I worry about those of tomorrow, I wish I were already there … all at the same time!” A good portion of these feelings will leave few traces, and will barely touch my deeper me. This me is less the material of which I am made, only transiting through me, than the structure which holds it up. The “I” expresses things which touch “me” sometimes in an objective way, but more often subjectively and with few consequences. And if the ego gets involved, the subjectivity may increase: “Come on,” says my ego to my I, “here I’m going to pass two pretty women, rucksacks and shells on their backs, and I straighten up and forget my sore muscles, I want them to think I’m dashing and full of energy …” And during this time, my “me” hunches over: “Poor me, if they only knew what a braggart I am!” 

 

Thus my “I”, teased and manipulated, who often only expresses the appearance of my true self, veiled and superficial, is a bit my “Reverse side.” Whereas my “me”, which expresses most profoundly the sensorial reality of my “being”, is that which constitutes most solidly my “Right side.”

 

If my “I” reverses and my “me” gets more rights, once equal finally, my “ego” shall then flee!