People expend an inordinate amount of energy carefully appearing to not be what they are, while appearing to be something they are not.
Like most, I spent many years being solely ego-driven and self-centered. While being savvy enough to know I would be better served to not appear to be these things.
Nowadays, after enormous effort, I have reached a state of not being ego-driven and self-centered, with the paradoxical consequence of no longer being savvy enough to try to appear to not be what I now am.

When one succeeds in becoming admirable in one's own eyes, rather than merely giving others that impression, one forgets the social rules that dictate that how one appears is far more important - to others - than what one actually is.

Development costs considerable energy.
Maintaining the appearance of non-existent development also costs considerable energy.
To what end is that energy best spent?

What sort of dumb-ass doesn't know what the meaning of life is?
What sort of dumb-ass makes enemies of every potential friend?
What sort of dumb-ass judges everything it sees as either good or bad?
What sort of dumb-ass has opinions about everything?
What sort of dumb-ass knows all it knows from someone else?
What sort of dumb-ass doesn't even know what sort of a dumb-ass it is?

Hmmm...
Maybe Wikipedia will have the answer.

Introspection.
Either you can do it, or you can't.
And if you can't, you don't even know what it is.

People often say it is impossible for anyone to be objective about themselves.
They can say this because nobody else exists for those people.
Such people see their own experience as the only experience possible. Their view as the only possible view.

When ego runs things, this is so. Ego is perfect. Or so it is convinced. There is nothing to adjust, or develop.
When ego does not run things, one watches one's ego, and rips into it, when it misbehaves.
So what is this 'one' watching one's ego?

If you have no soul, you do not know what soul is.
No words may describe it.
There is no way to know it without beng it.

The good news is that you may - at any moment - spontaneously birth your soul.
But to do so, you must have some interest in doing so.

Here at the buzzing offices of ANUS, we are having trouble with the new flat-pack desks we decided to buy, to support the many important projects we work on.
It seems that very little of the new stuff that has replaced the reliable old stuff, is fit for purpose.
Somewhere around nine sheets of paper is all it takes to collapse these new desks.
And, of couse, you never, ever, want to rest your elbows on them.
A sign of the times...

http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/30735/wm/pd2698105.jpg

I write often, here, and on other forums and blogs. I often say quite strange things.
Mostly, by the comments that follow what I write, I see that what I write is largely misunderstood.
Not just in its content, but in its motivation.
Many hold the opinion that 'it is all about me', or that I seek some kind of praise.
But this is never the case.
So what am I doing, anyway?

I've been around a long, long time. I started from nothing, or possibly even less than nothing, abandoned very early, the kind of life lived by most others, and set out to explore the world, and life itself.
I've had many experiences that few ever have, and discovered things, first-hand, that most others only read about, or see in movies. I've learned an awful lot from all this.

One of the very odd things I notice about responses to what I write, is that many see those things as uninteresting, boring, or out and out lies. As ego, or narcissism, when they are nothing of the sort. I could get quite discouraged by all this, if it were not for the occasional private messages and emails that tell me how inspiring my words often are, by people who rarely comment, preferring to dispense with the gratuitous abuse that commenting so often rewards the commenter with.

No. I write what I write, because it is interesting, unusual, or even unknown. If it wasn't, why would I bother writing at all? I have stuff important enough to share. And I am one who naturally shares important enough things, simply because I can.
I hope, I suppose, to inspire. This means to supply food for thought, for consideration, for wonderment and question, to take a reader from where they are, to where they are not yet. To stretch the bounds of their own experience.

This is neither teaching, nor preaching. It certainly isn't anything to do with self-aggrandizement, as is so often claimed. It is what it is: real life experience of things rarely, if ever, experienced, especially by the young. The kind of things only experienced over many years and in the face of many dangers. If ever.

Inspiration is something few understand, in today's society. It suggests a giving, rather than a taking. An investment in time, and in imagination. A journey one may embark on, simply to see where it goes. And so what if it goes nowhere? A life is a very, very long affair, even when it is short. There is time to investigate possible cul-de-sacs, because until those places are investigated, who knows what might lie there, undiscovered?

You only know what you know. There is always more than you know, that you don't yet know. But you'll never know it if you only judge things as right, or wrong, by what you know now. 

So you're intelligent. So what? What does that mean? What use is it?
What are you going to do with it?

Today is a big day in British Columbia.
We all get to vote for which left-wing party we want to wreck our province.
We are spoiled for choice:
a: The New Democratic Party: the termite socialists.
b: The Liberal Party: The fractionally not-so-left of the far-left.
c: The Conservative Party: who "believe in the equality of all people".
d: The Marxist-Leninist Party: who still don't know those two are long dead.
e: The Green Party: who make even less sense than the others.

Wow. This is the day I finally decided not to vote for anyone. Ever again.
So there.

There are roving bands of riff-raff where I live, who drink, smoke and mope their days away, between welfare checks, food-bank days, and break-and-enters, down at at the local cafe. My wife and I used to chat with them, for a while.
The idea of sharing often came up. It went something like this:

Riff-raff: "The rich should share their stuff with the poor. They have lots of stuff."
Me: "If they shared their stuff with you, what would you share with them? Resentment and jealousy?"

I didn't pursue that activity for long. But, since they sometimes asked f I had any work, I offered a few of them a bit of that. I have lots of work. I still do. Because, even though I paid them well, and my wife fed them, and very little output was actually expected of them, they still managed to produce nothing but resentment and jealousy.

Sharing suggests a give and take. Give something to someone, and get given something in return.
Strangely, such an arrangement already exists. It's called capitalism. You give your time, and get money in return.
The only real stipulation is that your time gets used for producing something approximately equal to the value of the money being paid to you. It's Rocket Science. Riff-raff are unable to grasp the concept.