How your ego is a lot like Facebook
Or, how to avoid the ego's antagonistic algorithms
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If you're on Facebook too much, like me, perhaps you've noticed recently that something very odd turns up in your news feed. You'll see a post from someone you don't know, and would probably never friend after you read their post. The reason you're seeing this offensive post is because one of your friends decided they had to correct someone who was wrong on the internet.
Now, I say this without judgment because, in the not too distant past, I was that person who had to correct everyone who was wrong on the internet, so I can empathize. However, I am now NOT the person who has to correct the wrongs all around me. I have trained myself, at least 99% of the time, to just keep scrolling.
Apparently, this is some algorithmic change that Facebook has recently made, ostensibly to create more engagement among its members. However, what it seems to be truly accomplishing is to simply turn up the volume on the already cacophonous outrage levels that have permeated this social platform. What this algorithm is trying to do is draw you back into arguments you may have decided you no longer want to be part of. It's like putting a piece of King's Hawaiian bread in front of someone on Keto. Believe me, I know the strength of this particular temptation.
I have been handling this is two stages: First, I look to see which of my knucklehead friends is still arguing with a brick wall, and two, I click on the three little buttons in the right-hand corner of the post and tell Facebook to never, ever, ever show me posts from this person again. It's kind of like playing whack-a-mole, but it's a game of training the algorithm that these are not fertile fishing waters for its insidious game of luring people into more pointless arguments on social media.
Don't think that this move by Facebook is random. They know what they're doing. The Wall Street Journal recently did a three-part series on the tactics Facebook has used over the years to get us all addicted to its platform and engage in endless hours of doom scrolling and useless bickering. Back in 2018, a new algorithm was introduced that corporate leaders hoped would make Facebook a kinder, gentler place.
The newspaper's investigation of Facebook's internal communications found it did just the opposite. It made the platform noisier and full of even more outrage and misinformation, probably to the surprise of no one who is not a corporate Facebook leader.
In a metaphysical sense, Facebook is simply a metaphor for this ego-driven world. The ego knows it has no power over you unless it can deeply engage you in feelings of outrage, feelings of anger, shame, fear and continuous grievances. If it sees you slipping from its grip – say getting into more meditation, taking more walks in nature, connecting deeply with your friends or your spiritual practices – it will rejigger its algorithms and seek new ways to pull you back into its darkness of cacophonous chaos.
"Listen to what the ego says," A Course in Miracles says in Chapter 21, "and see what it directs you see, and it is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid."
This is all by design.
The good news, though, is that there are two selves inside our heads; there is our tiny, vulnerable and fearful ego self, and there is the higher, Divine Self that is constantly listening to the Voice for God. We have a choice in which self we pay attention to. If we pay attention to the one attuned to the Voice for God – the Holy Spirit that speaks with that still, small voice – it will not be "drowned out by all the ego's raucous screams and senseless ravings," as the Course says, because we want to hear it.
Here's the key, though, according to the Course: "For on the voice you choose to hear, and on the sights you choose to see, depends entirely your whole belief in what you are."
I would submit to you that the reason our world seems especially noisy these days is that we have forgotten what – and who – we are. We are the light of the world. We are God's eternal child. When we forget that there are two selves within us, it's easier to pay attention to the noisy part of us that grabs our attention with its "raucous screams and senseless ravings."
However, I think the increased volume of outrage and grievance in our time is also occurring because more and more of us are seeking to tune it out. We want to turn our attention inward and learn how to be still. The ego, though, like Facebook, is madly trying any and all algorithms it can think of to keep our attention on the world outside of ourselves.
So many of us on Facebook are curating a world – a bubble, if you like – of like-minded spirits who uplift each other. In the Course's terms, we're trying to create the happy dream right there on our screen – but that doesn't serve the ego's purpose, so it jacks up the volume.
So, we have a choice. We can keep doom scrolling through our own patterns, issues, grievances and fears – or we can see through this cacophonous chaos to the Holy stillness - that silence that beckons us to listen to it every single moment of the day. This silence is that field out beyond right-doing and wrongdoing that Muslim mystic poet Rumi talks about. This silence is where the Holy lives. This silence is where our sense of separation falls apart and we understand that there's only one of us here.
We see through this darkness and into that silence by doing one thing on a regular basis: shutting up. The Universe is giving us this message loud and clear. A huge, seemingly never-ending pandemic has forced us all – well most of us – to cover our mouths. Maybe all these masks are the Holy's way to tell us to shush – to stop talking so much, to start listening more deeply, not just for the Voice of God in our own bodies, but for the Voice for God that speaks through those around us – perhaps especially through those with whom our ego wants to endlessly argue.
Instead of participating in the loud cacophony of chaos, adding our voices to the outrage, what if this is the time when we should practice silence? What if this is the moment that we finally learn to be still? Maybe this time is not about having OUR voice heard, but having God's voice heard – first deeply within ourselves and then in the world through our speaking those words of Love. What if it's time to train the algorithm of our ego that we're not taking the bait of its fear and outrage anymore?
The Secret of Creating Peace: Awareness and Forgiveness
It's so tempting to play the ego's game, but we can escape its clutches by following Jesus' example. In Luke 23:8-9, we find our guy before Herod, being tried for sedition, because people had become outraged at his brand of activism. This is what our ego does – it creates so much outrage in the world that anyone who dares to not join in on the fearful fun will get put on trial in some way or another – jeered at or dismissed as someone who doesn't care enough to be angry and afraid.
The scripture tells us that Herod was pleased to see Jesus and he hoped that Jesus would do some sort of sign before the assembly. Maybe Herod was hoping that Jesus would get angry and bring down the wrath of God on his accusers. This is just like our ego. It hopes that when it puts us on trial for not taking its bait of fear and outrage, that we'll lose our connection to spirit and lash out against it – putting us right back in its clutches and engaging in its game. The algorithm wins again.
Jesus doesn't do that. The scripture says he remained silent. He answered the cacophonous chaos with stillness. And this is so hard for us. We want to defend ourselves. We want to make the case about why we're right and everyone else is wrong. Jesus, though, knew that no matter what he said or did, he would be playing the ego's game. Jesus is teaching us to remain still and simply not engage with the ego's algorithm. No matter what Jesus did in this moment, his fate was sealed. Ours is, too. The ego will always seek to crucify you – to keep you trapped in a game of fear that wants to kill your spirit. There's no talking your way out of it.
Life in the spirit, though, it's kind of like Facebook, too. Jesus curated his community. Perhaps they weren't the best 12 guys in the end, but they carried his message up to this modern day, so it worked out pretty well. He also just kept scrolling in many cases, but refusing to engage with the algorithms that sought to draw him into conflict with others.
The big difference between Jesus and us, though, is that he did not exclude those who disagreed with him or resisted him. Instead, he sought to see through their cacophonous chaos to the light within them. He invites us to do the same – to curate a community of love around us, but not to exclude those who may oppose us. Instead, like Jesus, the Holy invites us to see so deeply into their darkness that eventually all we can perceive is their light.
Yes, you must work to mitigate the damage they may be doing in the world. But, as the Course tells us, we must have only appreciation for our Holy siblings – even those who are so engaged in the ego's game that they don't understand the harm they may be causing to themselves and others.
As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us: "The secret of creating peace is that when you listen to another person you have only one purpose: to offer him an opportunity to empty his heart."
It's easy to hold space for those we love – to allow them a safe space to empty their heart. How often, though, can we be open enough to allow even those we may perceive as enemies to feel safe enough to empty their heart to us? This is our challenge – to be so attuned to that Voice for God that we can become a place of comfort and safety for even those our egos would condemn and judge as separate from ourselves. If we want to create peace, though, we must learn to be so still, even in the face of outrage, that we become a space where miracles naturally occur, because we have remembered that we are the light of the world.
The key to seeing through the cacophonous chaos of this world is to approach each moment with awareness and perception of who and what we truly are. Hanh says: "If you are able to keep that awareness and compassion alive in you, then you can sit for one hour and listen even if the other person's speech contains a lot of wrong perceptions, condemnations and bitterness. You can continue to listen because you are already protected by the nectar of compassion in your own heart."
This is the awareness Jesus practiced as he stood before Herod. This is the awareness the Course encourages us to have as we listen for the still, small Voice of God instead of the raucous voice of the ego.
"Perception is a choice and not a fact," the Course reminds us. This ego world does not have to dictate how we perceive it. We have the vision of God, which means we can see in the dark. We have the ability to see light everywhere, even in the darkest soul we may perceive on earth. We cannot use that perception if we are too busy babbling on and on and adding to the cacophonous chaos of the world. First, we have to shut the heck up and learn to be still. We have to stop thinking that adding our ego's voice to the cacophonous chaos will do anything to change the world.
It's instructive to note that when Jesus finally does speak after this trial, it's only words of forgiveness. He forgives the thieves on either side of him and forgives those who hung him on the cross. This is where we all must arrive – that Holy forgiveness that literally saves the world.
We don't get there by talking – we get there by loving. We get there by forgiving. We get there by refusing to engage in the ego's game of fear, grievance and outrage. We get there by being still and aware of which self we're listening to – the self of fear, or the higher, Divine Self of love.
"Keeping your awareness keeps you safe," Hahn says. The Course says it does more than that – awareness ends the separation, because it makes us realize that there is only one of us here and that our minds can never truly be separate. Our higher, Divine Self knows this, so when a miracle changes our perception – and we see the light that shines even through the darkness of this cacophonous chaos, then the collective mind that we all share is changed, too, because there is only one of us here.
"There's a moon inside every human being," writes Rumi. "Learn to be companions with it. Give more of your life to this listening. As brightness is to time, so you are to the one who talks to the deep ear in your chest. I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears when that one steps near and begins to speak."
I invite you, my friends, sell your tongue and buy a thousand ears. Stop talking so much and start listening deeply to the silence that is always here in this present moment. It has so much wisdom, peace, love and joy to share, if only we can learn to be still and give our life to this kind of listening.
If we seek the moon in inside everyone – that reflected light of the love that created us all – then we can choose to scroll through that Holy newsfeed of Love that reaffirms the truth about us – that we are the Light of the World – innocent Children of God. When that is our perception of our selves and the world – then the one mind that we all are will say: "Oh, yeah."
Music for the Journey
The Eagles, “Learn to Be Still”
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The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass. She is also a musician and avid beer drinker.