#471 – Why did your Ego confuse creation with control?

The myth of the creator determined to shape their creation down to the last detail is as old as humanity.

A few days ago, in my morning pages, I wrote that I’d undertaken bringing a son into this world as my personal project: I would create a human who is fully independent, happy, and doesn’t waste his intelligence or talents.

Watching Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein last night, I realized how far I’d taken that project—and how much my fear of imperfection (where imperfection equals inevitable death) had shaped it.

When he was fourteen, I was grateful when my son yelled, “You want to control everything!” He was right. I was learning to let go, and that outburst was useful feedback.

Last year, when he was in jail—once I knew he was safe—I wondered whether having him there was my ultimate comfort: he was under absolute control. I even considered the possibility that I’d put him there myself, through my desire to protect him from the world.

Isn’t that pure arrogance? To think he’d be better off in chains than free in the world, risking mistakes?

That’s how the Ego works on you. It convinces you you’d be safer imprisoned in a small, perfectly-crafted life than out there, in the unpredictable world, where mistakes and perils abound. And also where you're free.

As your creations are. Free to live their own lives.

What will you stop controlling so that you set them––and yourself––free?

Love,

Carolina