Since the beginning of 2017 right up until the end, much of what I read, listened to, or learned had to pass through the filter of Donald Trump. He has been the elephant in my mental house. I really don’t want him there, but he’s been impossible to ignore. Everything is overshadowed by his size, his noise, his rants.

It happened just now when I was reading what is probably the least political thing I’ve read in a long time, Elizabeth Gilbert’s sublime book about creativity, “Big Magic.” Published in 2015 and written long before the earthquake election of 2016, Gilbert’s book is about the mysterious relationship between us and the inspiration that helps us make things — songs, mathematical equations, cakes, novels, pottery, mushroom farms. She helps us understand how inspiration feeds our souls and saves us from ourselves.

Gilbert covers a lot of territory in the book, but what jumped out at me was her discussion about what happens to us when we’re governed by our ego vs. our soul. Our ego, an essential part of our being, is also the insatiable part of us. It requires rewards. More and more rewards. There can never be enough rewards, enough Mercedes or cashmere sweaters or prizes or praise to satisfy it for long. Buddhists call an unchecked ego a “hungry ghost” that can never be satisfied.

Heated emotions are a sure sign of the ego becoming inflamed. It’s ego that wants revenge or to win the biggest prize, says Gilbert. (Are you listening, Mr. Trump?) “It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult, or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn’t get the outcome I wanted,” writes Gilbert.

Ah, but we are not only ego — or most of us are not. We are also souls and our souls feed on wonder, not rewards. Our souls are our creative side, what nourishes us merely by being active. Whatever gives us deep joy comes from our souls.

“My soul does not care a whit about reward or failure,” says Gilbert. “It is not guided by dreams of praise or fears of criticism. My soul requires only one thing: wonder.”

And creativity, all creativity, is the most efficient pathway to wonder. (I think being in nature is at least as good, but that is for another day.)

When our ego gets out of control, what can we do? We can steady our lives by attending to our souls, painting or making music, trimming our roses or cooking a special dinner for a friend. Could it be that what is really wrong with our 45th president is that he lacks a soul? Most likely, because he was undoubtedly born with one, his is buried, untended for so long.

I wish someone would find him a paint set or give him a keyboard. Invite him to trim the roses in the Rose Garden. Something. Anything. He needs more wonder in his life so that he will stop looking to others to call him wonderful. He needs to feel awe over something besides his own face in the mirror. He needs to quell his “hungry ghost” that so frequently rages and descends into Twitter wars.

One could argue that there is a lot at stake. A terrifying amount.

Recently retired from the staff of Utah Humanities, Jean Cheney writes, teaches and finds wonder living in Salt Lake City.

Comments