The Good Work of Giving Yourself Up
He is full of himself, filled with himself, believing the sensations he clings to is life itself.
But in his hands he holds nothing save a temporary agreement; a fleeting marriage of his own best ideas about himself confirmed for the moment by the world in which he seeks himself.
This unconscious union of ambition and condition, of desire and conforming circumstance, always creates a brief flash of light, as when flint meets stone. And when one or the other of these worlds crumble, as time insures they must do, his day turns to night; his wholeness seeps out, replaced by a gnawing emptiness. He can do nothing but watch as his mistaken fullness-of-self fades into unwanted feelings of self-futility.
This cycling of vanity with life-in-vain goes on and on until, one day, he begins to see the cost of his self-filling self. And in his awakening is born his first true wish to empty himself of this strange self love... for he no longer wishes to continue giving himself himself.
Here it begins. Now, in earnest, he commences the Good work of giving himself up.
