If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.

MARINA ABRAMOVIC, The Economist, Sep. 15, 2010

A lot of comments over the past couple weeks on my writings have focused in on ego and how it gets in the way of being a good dominant.

Mostly.

The thing I see, though, is that ego gets in the way of being a good ANYTHING—in kink and out. Dominant, sub, parent, employee, basketball player, politician… the list goes on.

Ego is brittle shell of what we want to be seen as, placed before who we truly, authentically are, getting in the way of…

Ego gets in the way of communication when we believe that what we are saying MUST be clear, and therefore our partner is being willfully obtuse or just plain stupid.

Growth is stifled by ego when we want to become better, but the possibility of having been wrong in the past (and facing that) is too great.

Learning and ego don’t mix. How could they? Learning requires accepting that we don’t yet know.

Ego cripples love. When we see ourselves as perfect (or as good as we can be, considering the circumstances), we cannot see others as being our equals, even our betters when they differ from us, and we cannot truly love those we look down upon or pity.

Play is nearly impossible with ego asserting itself. Play is by it’s very nature silly, unplanned, and imperfect. It requires mistakes and missteps to bring about laughter and give openings to our playmates. Ego has a hard time giving into anything less than perfection.

Just as no one is perfect in life, no one is perfect in ego.

Don’t look at ‘Ego cripples love’ above, and say, Well, I’ve never thought I was PERFECT.

Because you have.

We all have.

We have seen things through the blinders of our perspectives, and judged others in their differences a million and one times throughout our lives.

And we will again.

Over and over. And we will cripple love.

But, if we want more and better from ourselves, we will learn to recognize our ego when it happens, and we will correct ourselves and open ourselves to the possibilities of connecting and seeing people, situations,  and things in new and different ways.

In realizing that we don’t have to be 100% right to be 100% loved, and that we can love others, not in spite of their flaws, but because of them as well.

And perhaps, we can set aside ego more often, and pick back up our creativity in our communication, our growth, our learning, our love and our play.