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Antenarrative Ego, a Revision of My Own Brand: A Descent from the Ivory Tower

by David Michael Boje

I am currently navigating the doubt I feel, and it's my ego. I am finding my ego blindspots, Seven processes this time with ego answerability. Seven times seven floors in my ivory tower — Am I falling into the hating-energy vortex, hating myself? Am I defending myself? Climbing down, it is terrifying! So, I caught ego hiding in my theory. So, I created antenarrative 2.0 to save the brand — but did I?

Beneath my own fore-conceptions that I am right. I confess, I did not know my ego was doing that. Before my own fore-having a chip on my shoulder view. I confess, I did not know ego was directing my rage. Bets, my fore-sight is self-interested in academic status-seeking. I confess, I did not know ego wanted to climb the ivory tower. Being my own fore-getting my own position of privilege to focus on others as grand narrators, I devalue and shield my own mundane microstoria. I confess, I did not know I was looking down on everyone from the tower. Becoming, I purport to be fore-caring, but my heart of care is already entangled with complicity. I confess, I did not know my hating-energy turned on myself. Between, my ego is fore-structuring by selecting connections supporting my brand while ignoring fragments that are viable common ground to others' views. I confess, I did not know I was defending my room in the tower. Beyond, I end up fore-grasping the spiritual path among paths. I confess, I did not know that I lack ontological humility.

Time to break the 7-process scaffold, not in two. Time to break it into the core of my mind-player, ego.

Bottom line, I am not separate from the superorganism of the multiverse. Bottom line, I am one of infinite waves of possibility, not a fixed truth.

Something I discovered in the new book is to write free verse poems instead of making my brand more concretely academic. Something is standing at a distance from my own life — it's myself.

I confess, I miss my true self. Forty years in the tower, I forgot to be myself. I confess, I am distant from my inner divinity.

I confess, I did not know I was writing free verse. I confess, for fifty years I thought I wrote theory — dense, footnoted, peer-reviewed modeling, antenarratives and Tamaraland and quantum storytelling —

Then, academic prose interrupted me: pompous static, with some anecdotes baked in. Then, in 2026, I tripped, discovered that Google was already classifying my work as an example of free verse poetry, so I said to prose, "Stop, you are noise."

Specifically, the anaphora kind is a repeated phrase at the beginning of successive lines. Specifically, the anaphora creates structure without imposing rhyme or meter.

"Don't trade Brand-Structuring for Radical Openness." It is time. I confess: my "Between" has been selectively fore-structuring to support a brand, 2.0. It is time I tell the Tower to stop, and I prioritize viable common ground. This means no more selectively searching for the fragments in another's story that fit the model. This means stop branding my fore-conceptions by selective listening.

"Back to elevating your mundane microstoria into one more Grand Narrative of the expert, imitating Ontological Humility?" This means: being in the ivory tower, I acted like I was above. This means "high above" the system is an illusion — I am within the entanglement of the universe. There is no escape.

I am climbing down the ivory tower to converse with others who have their own antenarrative processes. I am climbing down, turning the Seven Bs on myself.

Therefore, my 7-process model is so academic it turns observer effect into biased ego effect. Therefore, my confession to Grace Ann: in a tower so high, I no longer know how to converse. She said to me, "We have not had an actual conversation in 30 years." She said to me, "You just lecture at me!" She stopped me mid-jog. She arrested my ego.

I said to Grace Ann, "I am going to start now — to listen to you, to have conversations like we did before cell phones. Like we did before we lived together." The answer vibrated in my head. The answer vibrating: I have a hating-energy vortex, hating myself, vibrating toward loving-care. I thought I fixed that in the last poem. Time to be silent a long while. I thought I fixed it in the first poem. Time to be silent again.

I saw the black ants come out after the rain. I don't step on black ants; they don't bite me. I don't live in the ivory tower — it's an endless abyss. Ants are a more sensible community. The ground is hard beneath my feet. The ground has more life in a teaspoon than there are people on Earth. Time to head home and call my grandchildren. Time to be in free flow.

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