More on the "I"

And thus the ego, this "and", is reflective of the connectedness we find in nature.   There is nothing unnatural or unhealthy about it.  Rather, it is a beautiful thing.
Perhaps it can be said that to have too strong an ego is to fail to achieve the proper balance between the "and" and the "or".  But that should be no more than a cautionary note.  The ego is something to be celebrated, not negated.  He (or she) who has an ego is someone who seeks to replicate the beauty found in nature.

The "and" is the "I"

And thus we learn that the brain is a cacaphony of various sensations (visual, auditory, sensual etc), drives and processes.  And there are various levels of awareness at any one time.   Currently, my focus is on this train of thought, but I am also, at other levels, aware of the screen, the sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard, the sensation of them hitting the keyboard, the light in the room, the sound of my cat's breathing etc., and I would notice it if suddenly I could no longer hear the sound created by my tapping fingers.

But the left side of our brain is responsible for creating a narrative, for connecting the disparate sensations, for creating a timeline, for creating my timeline, and for creating who I am, or who I see myself as being.  For I am the being who inherits this body, who has had these experiences and has performed these actions. The various  sensations I am having at this moment; tapping the keyboard, feeling it, watching the letters appear, are connected by the immediate project I am engaged in; making this entry, the larger project of keeping a slightly original blog in which I attempt to explicate some of the principles that underlie reality, and an overall grasp of my purpose in life, which to an extent is to make some sense of where I am and what I am experiencing during this very brief life.   And we are always connecting things and giving meaning to them.  I may be watching two men wielding objects that hit a ball between them.  But I can construct the narrative that those objects they are wielding are tennis rackets, that they are in fact playing a sport which has certain rules, that the game will eventually end with a winner, that the men are Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal, two of the greatest players, that they have a rivalry and this is but the latest chapter etc., that tennis is something I enjoy watching, a leisure activity, that leisure is an important aspect of my existence, of who I am, as is work...   We are always making connections and creating a story.  And this making connections, the "and", apparently resides on the left side of hour brains.  This creating a narrative, a sense of who I am, the "and",  is the "I", and it could use a rest.