Madness!

Still here, still tired. Oh, lord, this week feels like it will never end, what with all the finishing of projects that still has to get done. But it will, and very soon, and then I'll be working on completely different kinds of projects. So weird...

I've been rereading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth for I'd say realistically the ninth time at least. Somehow there's always surprising stuff in there that I need to hear, even though I feel now like I should be able to recite it verbatim. I've also been watching the new season of Mad Men. Have you? Oh boy, I thought after that double episode it was maybe getting a bit boring and overly slick, but I'm totally hooked again after this last weekend's one. Way to go, Trudy, am I right?

Anyway, there are lots of interesting parallels between the show and the book. I've definitely noticed Buddhist themes popping up on MM before, but doing Tolle and Weiner together really makes for some extra levels of enjoyment on both sides. Check out these things-said-by-Eckhart-Tolle-or-Don-Draper, e.g.:

1. The people in the advertising industry know very well that in order to sell things that people don't really need they must convince them that those things will add something to how they see themselves or are seen by others; in other words, add something to their sense of self.
2. Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn't work: The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming.
3. Even though success is a reality, its effects are temporary.
4. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. This is the psychological need for more, that is to say, more things to identify with. It is an addictive need, not an authentic one.
5. You're happy with fifty percent? You're on top and you don't have enough. You're happy because you're successful, for now. But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness. I won't settle for fifty percent of anything. I want one hundred percent. You're happy with your agency? You're not happy with anything, you don't want most of it, you want all of it. And I won't stop until you get all of it.
6. The physical needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, and basic comforts could be easily met for all humans on the planet, were it not for the imbalance of resources created by the insane and rapacious need for more, the greed of the ego. It finds collective expression in the economic structures of this world, such as the huge corporations, which are egoic entities that compete with each other for more. Their only blind aim is profit. They pursue that aim with absolute ruthlessness. Nature, animals, people, even their own employees, are no more than digits on a balance sheet, lifeless objects to be used, then discarded.

Of course, 3 and 5 are Draper, the rest Tolle. But I love how completely conscious Don is of the power of egoic grasping and how to manipulate it, even while he has no idea what to do about his own.

WRT the last quote, by the way, I went to see Revolution in the theatre tonight with Alison. It's a really powerful documentary by the guy who did Sharkwater, this time about the larger issues involved in saving life on this planet, especially our own. It's awful and frightening, and everyone should see it, because we're all going to be extinct in about 50 years if we don't start getting frightened really fast. Especially Canadians — we really suck. I noticed that no one in the audience could look each other in the eye when it was over, even though it ends on a note of hope. And even though I'm quite sure none of us voted for Harper.