To start with one's ego-identity and to try to bring that identity to terms with external reality by thinking, and then, having worked out practical principles, to act on reality from one privileged autonomous position -- in order to bring it into line with an absolute good we have arrived at by thought: this is the way we become irresponsible. If reality is something we interpret and act upon to suit our own concept of ourselves, we "respond" to nothing. We simply dictate our own terms, and "realism" consists in keeping the terms somewhat plausible. But this implies no real respect for reality, for other persons, for their needs, and in the end it implies no real respect for ourselves, since, without bothering to question the deep mystery of our own true identity, we fabricate a trifling and impertinent identity for ourselves with the bare scraps of experience we find lying within immediate reach.
To assume that my superficial ego -- this cramp of the imagination -- is my real self is to begin dishonoring myself and reality.
If we take a living and more Christian perspective we find in ourselves a simple affirmation which is not of ourselves. It simply is. In our being there is a primordial _yes_ that is not our own; it is not at our own disposal; it is not accessible to our inspection and understanding; we do not even fully experience it as real (except in rare and unique circumstances). And we have to admit that for most people this primordial "yes" is something they never advert to at all. It is in fact absolutely unconscious, totally forgotten.
Basically, however, my being is not an affirmation of a limited self, but the "yes" of Being itself, irrespective of my own choices. Where do "I" come in? Simply in uniting the "yes" of my own freedom with the "yes" of Being that already _is_ before I have the chance to choose. This is not an "adjustment." There is nothing to adjust. There is reality, and there is free consent. There is the actuality of one "yes." In this actuality no question of "adjustment" remains and the ego vanishes.
The "adjustment" of "yes" and "no" presupposes that the primordial _yes_ of being is called into question or ignored completely. No longer do we attend to what _is._ Rather we set ourselves the task of making a selection from an indefinite number of unrealized and unrealizable possibilities. This calls for a constant adjustment of "yes" and "no" as we try to walk on a tightrope over an abyss of nothingness.
The "adjustment" is a fiction and so is the tightrope. the abyss of nothingness is, in fact, the abyss of Being.
Thomas Merton
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