The Flattered Ego

One of the great drawbacks (and downfalls) of the ego is that it can be so easily flattered and, once flattered, it tends to lose the ability to see context and perspective. I don't write of this in the abstract; my flattered ego gets the best of me, at times.

Because of the specialized subject matter of this blog, I have a loyal but small readership. A good stat day will see, maybe, 100 or so visitors. While every writer I know -- and this includes yours truly -- wants to be read, I knew going into this experience that The Rambling Taoists would never enter into the upper echelon of must-read blogs! I can live with this fact.

But there was a week last summer when my daily blog stats increased exponentially. Hundreds of people were flocking here and, on one particular day, over 800 pages were accessed! What caused this massive onslaught readers? I soon discovered that one of Time Magazine's Top Ten Blogs of 2009 -- Zen Habits -- had quoted something I had written and provided a link.

Well, let me tell ya, my flattered ego soared! I immediately decided to check out Zen Habits. I skimmed several of the posts on the main page and thought I had found a kindred spirit. So, I subscribed to the blog and eagerly awaited each day's installment.

It took my flattered ego a good long while to regain context and perspective. This process was hastened because I started to read deeply Leo Babauta's prose and I surmised that it wasn't what it initially appeared to be. In fact, in a short amount of time, his claptrap take on "simplicity", really started to get under my skin.

Take, for example, one of the most recent posts, The Tao of Productivity. Utilizing several quotes from the Tao Te Ching, Babauta writes,

In this age of digital communication, we’re busier than ever. And yet, in all of our sound and fury, we seem to have no time for focus, for what’s important, for thinking.

To find this focus, we will need to completely rethink the need for productivity.

Think of our culture’s obsession with productivity: with the need for “hard work” and working long hours to get things done, with the need to be busy busy busy all the time, with the need to make lists and check them off, with the need to juggle countless projects and make more revenue and accomplish more and more. But for what? What’s the point of all this obsession? It leads to burnout, stress, anxiety, unhappiness, greed, confusion, and no time for family, friends, and yourself.

While I certainly do NOT disagree with the tenor of his thought, what bothers me is the way he manages his life is the very antithesis of what he writes!

This is a man who has created a blogging empire. He hosts several blogs -- Zen Habits, Zen Family Habits, A-List Blogging Camp, Mnmlist and a Zen Habits Tumblr blog. He maintains an ongoing dialogue on his Twitter account. He writes books, conducts seminars and writes guest posts for other blogs. I'm sure he has several other irons in the fire that I don't know about because I no longer follow his boasting that closely.

This is the very definition of being "busy, busy, busy," having "to juggle countless projects" and desiring to generate "more revenue and accomplish more and more." His blog posts are all about making "lists" and checking them off. If all the various verbiage attributed to him is from his own hand, then he must be "working long hours to get things done." Plainly put, his words and actions don't converge at all.

It might be suggested that the cited post merely represents him thinking out loud and writing to himself as much as anyone else. I can tell you that I'm confident that is not the case. I've read enough of his blather to know that this is his shtick. He writes incessantly about simplifying life and depressing desire, while he himself works to complicate his life by feeding his worldly desires.

At this point, an intrepid reader might ask: Why do you care? If you don't like his blog or his writings, don't read 'em! The reason I continue to subject myself to his distorted musings is that more and more people are looking to the Eastern philosophies of Taoism and Zen to make sense of the world around them. As the most popular blog on these purported themes, I worry that far too many people are getting an altogether wrong message, one that runs counter to the wisdom of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.

The man is utilizing the philosophies that expound on the virtues of humility, simplicity and selflessness to promote the typical western dream of wealth, power and influence. I fear that those tens of thousands of unknowing readers are buying into the Philosophy of Leo. And this singular fact irritates the hell out of me.

We have yet another charlatan in our midst!