“So bullshitting isn’t just nonsense. It’s constructed in order to appear meaningful, though on closer examination, it isn’t. And bullshit isn’t the same as lying. A liar knows the truth but makes statements deliberately intended to sell people on falsehoods. bullshitters, in contrast, aren’t concerned about what’s true or not, so much as they’re trying to appear as if they know what they’re talking about. In that sense, bullshitting can be thought of as a verbal demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect—when people speak from a position of disproportionate confidence about their knowledge relative to what little they actually know, bullshit is often the result.”
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you shoud not return emptyhanded. Please take my clothes as a gift.”
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow, ” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to ride a bike to work or use public transportation, but then find yourself judging anyone who drives a car, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to stop watching television because it rots your brain, but then find yourself judging those who still watch TV, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to avoid reading gossip, tabloid or news magazines, but then find yourself judging those who do read those things, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to listen to classical music or soothing nature sounds, but then find yourself judging those who listen to mainstream or pop music, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to do yoga, become a vegan, buy organic, buy healing crystals, practice reiki, meditate, wear hippie/thrift shop clothing, visit ashrams and read enlightened spiritual books, but then you judge anyone who doesn’t do those things, you’re in an ego trap.
Always be aware of the feeling of superiority. Self-righteous superiority is your biggest clue that you are in an ego trap. The ego loves to sneak in the back door. It will take a noble idea, like starting up yoga, and then twist it to serve its own ends by making you feel superior to others; you will start to look down on those who are not following your righteous “spiritual” path. Superiority, judgment and condemnation. That is the ego trap.
“And the big daddy that I learned from all this: I actually CAN’T paint like other artists, and nor do I want to. That’s the best thing this exercise has taught me over the years; it’s fun to experiment, to try out what other artists are doing, but if I only ever did that I’d be unfulfilled and dissatisfied. I’d be surrounded by a vegetarian buffet and craving steak.”
