Love and Ego (#IWSG)

      Voting is still open on my Battle of the Bands post.  If you have not visited yet to vote for your favorite recording please visit this post and let your preference be known.  The song that I've used ties in with today's post as well as my Reflections Post yet to come.



Insecure Writer's Support Group


       Join us on the first Wednesday of each month in Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group--a forum of writers who gather to talk about writing and the writer's life. For a complete list of participants visit Alex's Blog. 





Now What?

       Leon Russell's song "Manhattan Island Serenade" provides a good analogy to how I feel  after an A to Z Challenge has ended.  The narrator of the song talks about being broke down stuck along the roadside and thinking of recent loss.  He reflects on where he's been and where he's going next. It's kind of the same way I feel and what I've read some of the other A to Z participants say they feel about the end of the Challenge.  But it's a temporary feeling like we get any time we've had a rush of fullness in life and then it's gone leaving us with only memories.

         But enough reflecting for now.  My official A to Z Reflections Post will appear on Tossing It Out coming on Monday May 9th.  For more information about the Reflections Post be sure to visit the A to Z Challenge Blog.   Today I want to consider some things ahead on my blog.


Love and Ego

        Most of you probably recall the story of Narcissus who gazed at his own reflection in the pool of water and fell in love with the image, which unobtainable to him eventually led to his demise.  Narcissism is an exhaustive topic that cannot be addressed in a single blog post, however I raise the topic as an introduction to things to come on Tossing It Out.  

         During the month of April I began to ponder the concepts of love and ego and all things connected with these concepts.  I meandered through many aspects of these things prompted by whatever I was absorbing in the media, on the internet, and all around me in general.  It was one of those weird moods perhaps, but it led me to a number of questions.

          Why do we write?  Why do we blog?  Why do we do the things we do or find ourselves attracted to certain people?   And in the end what does it all mean?   Just asking, you know--just asking like most of us probably ask the universe at times.  

           And specifically in regard to our writing and blogging, why do we choose the stories we tell and topics we explore and how do we make these things relevant to others?   Sounds whimsical perhaps, and it is.  But why not?   Why not ask what, how, and why?  Besides summer is coming and that's a time that I've always associated with daydreaming and thinking down the rabbit hole.  Lazy days and crazy days.   Vacations and recreations.  Much of my recreation consists of thinking so that's what I plan to do even though thinking seems to be what I do much of the time anyway.

          After all summer is coming and with summer while I physically wander the country, my mind will be wondering about many things.   This is always the case it seems.  If we aren't questioning, then we must be lacking in awareness.   Not thinking is not being alive.

         Maybe it's silly to ask the age old question "What is the meaning of life?"   But then, why not ask the question?   In asking we might find an answer.  Or more likely we might give rise to more questions.  Sometimes the questions never stop just as much of the time the answers never come.

          In any case, my theme in every post on Tossing It Out including my Battle of the Bands posts from now until I decide to stop will be "Love and Ego".   Call me obsessed if you like.  But then maybe Love and Ego is ultimately the only theme any of us ever writes about when it comes right down to the crux of all things.  

          Do you ever ponder the mysteries of love and ego?   Do you consider your actions to be mostly driven by ego, love, both, or something else entirely?    Does the word "ego" have a negative connotation to you?