Happy Brain Storming

Big EGO: Avoid THIS mistake

Self-importance is another thing that must be dropped, just like personal history. Now we are concerned with losing self-importance. As long as you feel that you are the most important thing in the world you cannot really appreciate the world around you. You are like a horse with blinders, all you see is yourself apart from everything else.

~ Carlos Castaneda

The forces that have shaped history are not so many as one could think. One could argue that all global, human movements have emerged from the simple interactions of million independent personalities following a few, basic psychological rules. However, he, that would argue such a thing, would probably win a very strange look at the bar and would be soon left alone to finish his drink. Unless of course if he or she was next to someone avec le nom de Benoit Mandelbrot.

In a similar manner that a bee is not fully aware of the hive motions and just does what she likes doing best, which is mostly buzzing and eating nectar, most individuals are unaware of the individual psychological forces that shape group movements.

Some are more visible than others: While so many poems have been written about love and lust or some sweaty combination of both, very few or none have actually been written about something that is called "the Ego".

However, this tiny, little word has claimed more victims and has conquered more mountain peaks than any other blond, sexy impulse. When it has to do with stats, Ego finishes first with the second runner finishing sooooo late that in between them a true French man could finish his dinner, completely undisturbed. Well, you could use Benoit for that example.

Salut, c'est Moi

In psychoanalytic terms Ego is a part of the structural model of the psyche as it was described by Sigmund Freud. The three parts according to this lovely Austrian friend of ours are:

The Id also known as That, It and Das. Id is basically all our primitive desires and impulses, nicely put into a vibrating, sexy box. You could say that Id is the little devil sitting on your left shoulder.
The Ego that mediates among the id, the Super-Ego and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives and reality (the Ego devoid of morality at this level) while satisfying the id and super-ego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal.
The Super Ego includes all parental and moral society influences. You could say that Super Ego is the little angel sitting at your right shoulder. Whatever you should do or should not do is kept in there. That too. It was bad you did that and you know it. Let's not talk about it now.

Let's bow our heads in recognition for the above. We bow to you, Wikipedia, for you superior Knowledge-fu designs.

Most languages have their own words (Mich, Moi etc) and the actual word "Ego" means "I" in Greek. I find it interesting that Anglosaxons have never used an English word for that. I guess the reasons should have been practical and born out of the many misunderstandings that its use must have brought in classrooms all around the Atlantic:

Teacher: " I is a term ..."

Students: "..."

Egotism

An egotist is a self-made man who worships his creator.

~ John Bright

However for most people the term Ego means something completely different, not to be confused with the above:

The term Ego is used loosely to describe a sense of self importance. It is not to be confused with self esteem that is something very different. Now, imagine that you are up on the podium and you ask your students:"Listen everybody. Who can tell us the difference between Ego and Self Esteem? John ? Maria ?".

Not many will know to give you a good answer to that one. Except of course that guy in the first line that knows always everything.

While Ego is not necessarily something bad, it sure has a very strange story for every person. First of all, Ego needs internal dialog in order to function. Segundo, it needs comparison in order to function. You never feel important when you sit all by your self and your mind is empty. You only feel important when you relate to some other person or situation and for that you need real action or internal dialog to maintain the inertia.

These two clues should make you suspicious about its whereabouts, no less than the day that you became suspicious about that girl, when she told you that 'she takes the pill and you do not need to use a condom' ...

Ego arises out of a lack of self esteem and its origins are debatable. Most people do not have self esteem and almost all of us have some internal wound from which, we have never really recovered. In order to get around that lack of self esteem, we have built a system that permits us to feel important. This castle is called Ego and it feeds out of comparison. Every time you find your self feeling that you are better in some sense than someone else, this castle of yours grows, glows and gets bigger. However, every time that you find someone else that is better than you, deep, unpleasent silence engulfs everything.

Under this silence, high achievers will work day and night until they manage to improve. On the meantime, you ignore what happens around you. You are no longer capable of seeing the beauty that surrounds you. You are an eager beaver working on your new project and all you dream of is being the best. This is your addiction.

Now, if you achieve what you are looking for, great, this will bring you a small satisfaction and the castle will grow even more -- until a new cycle of comparison starts again.

If, however, you do not get the results you were aiming for, your Ego will find a way to get around that failure.

People that have big Egos and fail to succeed, either live their lives with a deep sense of failure or they distort rheir reality in order to keep that desired feeling of supremacy above all other beings.

It is funny to what lengths our mind will go, in order to guarantee that feeling of importance. There was a time, when with the slightest idea that someone was smarter than me, that he had more women than me or that he was physically stronger than me, I would perform one of the following:

Deny it.
Downplay his achievements.
Claim luck or some 'unfair' external factor that held me back or boosted him/her.
Downplay the importance of what he/she had achieved.
Downplay some other aspect of his/her life or character.
Some wicked combination of all the above.

The problem with this way of living is that it keeps you in a constant state of competition. Your life takes place only between the four walls of success, failure, stress and training. Now, before you jump to the conclusion that *you are different* think twice: Remember back in your life, the time when you really wanted to achieve something but you never really made it. Remember when some time later, you found out that someone else had actually achieved what you craved MUCH, MUCH better than you. Sports, business, women, men or whatever else your pervert mind of yours may desire....

Now, read the above list again ...

Do you see your name written all over there ?

Sure you do, my friend. Most of us do. The few of you that do not see it, considered your self privileged and go out have a beer to celebrate it.

Villains and how they are born

While Ego can boost you to work late hours, overcome challenges and have a bad breath in order to achieve what you want, it has many other serious side effects as well. When it has to do with social relations, your Ego is a killer that can make enemies faster than a Bush. People with big Egos have serious social problems. As all they strive for is to be better than others, they can never chill out and vibe with people. During my 235 years of life, here are some of the entertaing situations I have witnessed:

a) John wants always to be right, he wants to be the best, he wants to have the prettiest girlfriend and when someone else in his social circle seems to enjoy more success than him, he reacts to it. He 'has' to win every argument, he 'has' to be the leader of the group even if he has no clue about it and as a result his relationships are tiring even for the most good hearted. If he doesn't get what he wants, he then proceeds to the bold act of ... Getting pissed off.

b) George, the younger brother of John, feels so important that he cannot tolerate being ignored. As a result there is no chance that he will ever ask a girl 'to dance' unless he is 100% sure that he will get a Yes. This type of ego thinking, also known as I-am-the-prince-and-I-talk-only-to-the-princess ideology is propagating very fast nowadays in society. The result is a complete lock down between men and women, making the margin of interaction between the two of them, really, really thin: There is NO SEX in the VIP room.

c) Marc feels so important that with the slightest signal of someone else challenging him, he starts a conflict with that person. This kind of Ego is also called a trip-wire sensitive Ego.

d) [For men only]

Once upon a time I used to do some boxing training. One day I found my self facing a sparring mate that was smiling, friendly and had the most incredible arsenal of punches I have ever seen. While I have never been through the experience of being bombarded, I think this was the closest I will ever be: I had to sit down in order to hold my self from crying. As I was there, staring at the floor, it struck me that I was not really hurt, so something else must have been going on.

Now, I know: It was my pride, my Ego that had taken the pummelling. It could just not accept that another person could beat me. Nobody beats Lion.

This is the same reason why most fights take place.

Scenario: Luigi is *that* guy that hangs out at the gym. He lifts weight, he runs the 'mill and he flexes in front of mirrors. Luigi feels super important but he needs to prove it as often as possible in order to maintain that belief. Then, one day as he is walking down a road, another man stares at him. Luigi's Ego shouts: Hey! Nobody stares Luigi like that. Luigi's Ego, lowers its voice and tells to our man that *wow* maybe the other person is physically stronger than him. This can't be! He must prove his Ego wrong. So, he escalates back to that other guy. If the other person has a similar way of thinking, people place your bets, because a fight will probably take place.

e) David needs constant proof that he is better than all other people. He will prove that not by improving him self but by lowering the status of others. He chooses mean verbal sparring and physical gestures to achieve his goal.

f) Seb's Ego needs to prove that he can have social status and he wants to earn money at any cost. If his moral inhibitions are not very high this combination can produce a criminal that will not hesitate to steal, kill or do whatever necessary in order to get his fix.

g) Maria feels important, so there is one thing that she cannot tolerate: Making mistakes and looking foolish. However, as you all have noticed in order to learn anything new, that is exactly what happens: you look foolish and make mistakes. This is the nature of learning. Avoiding this, leaves Maria permanently trapped in a situation where she never ever learns anything new.

Dealing with Egoists ( Or Egotists?)

The first question that one should ask himself (or herself: Hi, pretty... :)) is: What kind of Ego are we talking about? Some people are so hopelessly egotists that any effort of socializing with them is the equivalent of trying to teach math to a monkey: You WILL eventually see some results but you better have many bananas handy ... Some people are so hopelessly egotists that they end up sucking ALL your energy.

In all other cases the most important set of rules is this one:

Downplay your achievements. Do not talk about them all the time. Claim that it was luck and finally, congratulate them for their achievements. Now, one little warning about this last one: There are some cases where they will end up seeking validation from you all the time and this can become boring. To be used with caution.

Ego Fractals

If you notice the way that big groups of people behave, you will find similarities with the way individuals behave. There are certain phenomena that are dimensionless. Corporations are a good example of greediness in a zuper scale. Egoistic aggressivity can exist no matter the number of people participating. This disease that is called Ego has polluted our minds, has made us greedy, has killed millions during the wars and now it is threatening our planet.

This is what kicked Adam and Eve out of 'paradise': This is what the apple symbolises. The internal dialog, the constant thinking that maintains the Ego mind and the constant need to grow and dominate others that comes with it.

How can I stop it ?

This question has been troubling me for some time.

One day I went for a walk up on a green hill that is next to my house and overlooks the area. Being there means that the next human is at least 200 meters away. I then sat down and for some reason my mind remained silent. No thoughts. No one there to compare my self to either. I sat down and I spent some time observing the bees buzzing from flower to flower, the slight breeze making the leaves move and the way the birds were flying. I remained in that amazing, calm state for more than 15 minutes.

Or that is what I thought.

Because when I looked at my watch, one and half hour had vanished. Evaporated like a ninja. I then realised what Eckhart Tolle and Carlos Castaneda have been talking about.

You must stop talking to yourself. Every one of us does that. We carry on an internal talk. We talk about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we kindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so. You must start slowly to undo the world. You can stop the world using this technique.

You take yourself too seriously. You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!

In order to stop your Ego mind you have to realise the way it works. This is the first step. Then you have to diminish your internal dialog. Trust your subconscious. Disassociate your ego from your identity. This is the second step. Then you have to observe the way it acts. Ask yourself whether an action comes from a genuine interest or from a need to satisfy your Ego. Your drive will come from a genuine interest towards the art and not from a need to compete. You will then be able to sit down and enjoy your life much better. In the meantime the rest of humanity can continue chasing its own tail.