Greed is good – yeah?

As Gordon Gekko once famously quoted Ayn Rand – in ‘Wall Street’ – ‘Greed is good‘.

Well, both Ayn and Gordon got it wrong. Greed isn’t good. Passion is good. And Greed is a Headmind distortion of passion.

What goes on here is that Headmind (or Ego, if you prefer) substitutes Being for Having, and Emotion for acquisitiveness.

Now some people have a passion for making money. It’s not one of my attractions but I can understand why some people get that way. And if they are living that passion then they may well be doing other people a favour by giving them something they want – or making jobs for them. But when passion is distorted by acquisitiveness then they get greedy – and obsessive – and lonely – and sad. They may even end up in the Penitentiary like Gordon did.

When you live in Bodymind (as I try to do) you realise that Passion is its own reward. Work, Love, Telling the truth and being Creative are exciting things to do. Its not a guarantee that you will be rich, famous, loved or powerful. That’s Headmind telling us that we are unworthy if we are not in one of those categories.

As it happens I recently made up a list of emotions (passions) which get distorted by Headmind’s need to have something rather than to be something.

Joy – Addictions (Headmind has to possess happiness rather than just being with it and then letting it go). The addiction can be to sex, drugs, love or even money.

Anger – Revenge (Headmind has to control the offender rather than just express and forgive)

Fear – Dependency (Headmind has to collect helpers rather than accept personal responsibility)

Awe – Religious mania (Headmind has to impose the truth on others rather than admit that Life is too tremendous to be understood completely)

Sadness - Grief (Headmind refuses to live without the lost friend, father, mother or child) and lives in the past, holding on to memories.

Love – it isn’t really an emotion but it is a passion based on joy. But its distortion by Headmind is interesting because when the Ego tries to control it, then it becomes jealousy or possessiveness.