DW's Blog

Holy Moly

by DW Green — August 23, 2023

“The image we carry about ourselves is extremely inaccurate and incomplete.”

I’ve always liked the phrase Holy Moly. It has a nice sound to it! Holy moly means “an exclamation of surprise, shock, or astonishment.” Or, as in Wow! (the exclamation used by the comic book character Captain Marvel.) Holy moly! A whole quarter! Shazam!” Shazam is a pretty neat word too! Holy Moly, as an exclamation of surprise, dates back to at least 1892. Wow! Shazam!

However, this blog isn’t about Holy Moly. It’s about Ego! Holy moly! We have an ego due to social convention, but the fallacy we all make is that we treat this abstraction (ego) as if it were real and physical. But the ego is merely a composition of ideas and images about ourselves. This image is obviously no more us than the idea of a tree is a tree. Additionally, the image we carry about ourselves is extremely inaccurate and incomplete. My image of me is not at all your image of me, and my image of you is not at all your image of you.

The good news is, is all that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible. As Deepak Chopra writes, “If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.” Awareness then is the answer! Holy Moly!