'right relationship' & aesthetics

Or: On being afraid of my own ego.

I would honestly be very curious to know - how many of you other evolvers out there have had the following experience: anxiety about aesthetic form.

?

This morning I experienced the high of listening to kindred spirit musicians on youtube & itunes, followed by... a feeling of anxiety several hours later. Especially relating to certain musicians & styles of music in particular.

One was Zooey Deschanel covering some 1940's song on youtube. It was well-done, but seemed cold & contrived at the same time. It scared me! I felt like I saw that her ego is/was inhibiting the fuller more genuine flow of her heart. It reminded me of how powerful, cold & isolating an ego can be.

I think that I am TERRIFIED of over-identifying with any particular form or genre, which is what the egoic mind seems to seek. I am scared of my own ego, & it's potential to distort my perception & inhibit my full-spectrum knowledge of reality.

This sounds so terribly abstract... but I have been having this experience for years.

I have to stop listening to music at all periodically, for months at a time, in order to regain my alignment with the fullness of silence.

The most charitable way to describe myself in this respect is - very, very sensitive. I guess I am that quintessential "Highly Sensitive Person" that inspired the book series! :)

I know I have a creative calling, but - at times it can be tricky to navigate my aesthetic hyper-sensitivity. It has been a long road searching for a vision that doesn't terrify me. The closest I have found is simplicity of japanese pottery, & the relatively ego-less, earth-based craft of many indigenous artisans.

I have ideas for music too, which has led me to world music (music of community - music of celebration, dancing, lullabies, storytelling, healing, etc) but even there - I have to steep myself in the inner knowing that the primacy of silence & life energy comes before any particular pattern, form, or sound.

The closest that I know of to others feeling similarly is the prohibition in Islam against depicting human faces... perhaps because not being hung up on a particular icon or 'graven image' might encourage one to see the divine pattern in everything. (ie: & not just in glorified human beings)

There are also many traditions that find great value in simplicity - Quakerism, Buddhism.. even Christian Evangelicism places taboos on depicting Jesus on the cross, or any of the Catholic or Orthodox 'saints'.

But, well - I'd love to know if anyone else out there in Evolverland or elsewhere in evolving contemporary society can relate to the experience I'm explaining here.

Thanks all!! :)

meldrc