Documentary
Suppose you were going to make a movie, whose subtitle would be “The Life and Death of [your name goes here].” And suppose there were three possible choices for the title itself:
- Pride
- Fear
- Surrender
What are your feeling-reactions to each possible title? How well does each one, when you consider it, describe your experience? And what is the relation of surrender to pride and fear?
What specific occurrences of self-surrender have you witnessed? Have there been surrenders to others? What were the motivations in each case? Did the surrender leave you feeling inflated or deflated? Have there been surrenders to what you might consider lower aspects of yourself? Higher aspects? Did they leave you feeling better about yourself or worse? Have the surrenders been voluntary or involuntary? How is surrender connected with control? Have you willingly surrendered some control to what you might consider a higher principle or power? If so, what did you hope to gain by doing so? If not, is the motivation based on pride or fear? What do you really want from your life, and what would you be willing to surrender if necessary?
— Art Ticknor, Solid Ground of Being
