Feed your ego (it's hungry!)

A few years ago I began an experiment in irony. While it's fashionable to deny one's ego, I decided instead to feed mine well and often. But here's the important part: only I feed it, no one else. The resulting effect is that regardless of whether I receive praise or insults, they're just small drops in a very large bucket.

Through this process I actually dissociated my personality into two parts, the ego and the critic. It was funny watching ego do "egotistical things" like expecting praise or attention from others, which I would then correct while being careful not to abuse it. It's like when you take something from a baby you give something back in return and try to teach it in the process.

This allows one to have a large ego without many of the problems typically associated with it. I've watched (and experienced) too many people use each other to feed their own egos indirectly. I've been guilty of it myself. And if they get used to it and that feeding is denied? Watch out!

Usually it's the people with fame and/or power who lash out the most when you don't give them the respect they expect, but it's also those with low self-esteem who guilt-trip others into feeding their egos.

It's not a big ego that's problematic, it's an unbalanced one.

I share this because it's worked well for me so far and because I see a lot of anti-ego talk around here. Having grown up in a guilt-ridden religion where any sense of pride was considered evil or vain, I wrestled with problems of self-esteem for years. Even after I freed myself from the shackles of religion I still had residual problems. Denying the ego was one of those problems. Now I love my ego, but I also experience it as one of two internal (yet always present) personalities. As strange as that sounds, the distinction has it's uses in addition to offering a creative way to get around the "self-love = bad" concept.

totally agree; every day i look at myself in the mirror and say to myself "you are one god damn gorgeous sex machine"

reply to post by circlemaker


I liked your post, can relate to it myself, accept i chose to remove my ego like most. Highly succeeding i think, but in turn ended up causing some problems. I eventually came to realize that ego is not a bad thing, you need both Ying and Yang. You just have to have the two balanced, unlike most who just feed the ego and that is it.

reply to post by circlemaker


Can you go into more detail about how you "feed" your ego? Like self talk, etc? Would you feed your ego negatively or did you always praise yourself and deny any faults you have?

I am often astounded at how many people will point to the Ego and ascribe blame to for what would accurately be a phenomenon of the Id. People will suggest that people's downfall happen because of an Ego out of control, but the reality it was an Id, demanding obscene amounts of pleasure, and even pain as pleasure, just as long as it is some form of stimulation that does not take near as much effort as the stimulation that would come from an Ego.

The stimulation that comes from the Ego is pride. Yet there are countless self help guru's and advisers who would convince us that pride is a fatal flaw, and even a deadly sin. How odd that something that can only be obtained through earning it would be vilified while any substance abuse offered by chemicals - and requires no effort to earn it - is demanded on an increasing level by the Id.

Addictions are not caused by an Ego, they are caused by our Id. Beating that addiction would be because of our Ego. Obesity is not caused by Ego, but by the Id, and overcoming obesity done so by our Ego. Why is it that so many would have us believe otherwise?

reply to post by circlemaker


"Now I love my ego, but I also experience it as one of two internal (yet always present) personalities."

^This is a very interesting statement^.
'Always present' - this is the place you have come to, you have realized 'where' you are. From presence you watch the mind (the ego). The mind is doing tricks and playing games and 'you' watch it. 'You' are now God watching the play.

Ego is experienced by the experiencer.
You see the personality so you are not the personality - you are the seer and knower of the personality.
God is the all seeing, all knowing, ever present presence.

Originally posted by circlemaker
A few years ago I began an experiment in irony. While it's fashionable to deny one's ego, I decided instead to feed mine well and often. But here's the important part: only I feed it, no one else. The resulting effect is that regardless of whether I receive praise or insults, they're just small drops in a very large bucket.

Through this process I actually dissociated my personality into two parts, the ego and the critic. It was funny watching ego do "egotistical things" like expecting praise or attention from others, which I would then correct while being careful not to abuse it. It's like when you take something from a baby you give something back in return and try to teach it in the process.

This allows one to have a large ego without many of the problems typically associated with it. I've watched (and experienced) too many people use each other to feed their own egos indirectly. I've been guilty of it myself. And if they get used to it and that feeding is denied? Watch out!

Usually it's the people with fame and/or power who lash out the most when you don't give them the respect they expect, but it's also those with low self-esteem who guilt-trip others into feeding their egos.

It's not a big ego that's problematic, it's an unbalanced one.

I share this because it's worked well for me so far and because I see a lot of anti-ego talk around here. Having grown up in a guilt-ridden religion where any sense of pride was considered evil or vain, I wrestled with problems of self-esteem for years. Even after I freed myself from the shackles of religion I still had residual problems. Denying the ego was one of those problems. Now I love my ego, but I also experience it as one of two internal (yet always present) personalities. As strange as that sounds, the distinction has it's uses in addition to offering a creative way to get around the "self-love = bad" concept.

I instead look at is as ego parasitic behaviour and egoless symbiotic behaviour. In one part you have a big sense of self and you can even be very proud of what you are without it being a so called negative ego trip on other people. I have a hard time stroking other people egos. From my perspective there is not soul more valuable than mine in the whole universe but not any soul that have less value than my soul either. It is kinda hard feeling that you are a lowlife sinner when you have awakeened. I am what I am nothing less and nothing more. There are people that have lucid dreams and can hear their guides and so on. Cool for them they know things I do not know . And I might have figured out things they do not know. I cannot judge if ones road is faster than another because I might be stuck in my evolution while a person that have not evolved at all will run passed me without any problem and understand things I do not.

And just to be clear the true me is not my mind or my ego. My soul is the true me and I know so little about myself but the things I know is all good.

Originally posted by unknown known
reply to post by circlemaker

 

Can you go into more detail about how you "feed" your ego? Like self talk, etc? Would you feed your ego negatively or did you always praise yourself and deny any faults you have?

Self-talk is a big part of it. By self-critiquing we can consciously reprogram certain tendencies. Then when we're on autopilot our subconscious does what we taught it to do. By not giving ego attention it basically does it's own thing, like an unguided child.

I used to ignore the ego until something dramatically good or bad happened. Then I'd either get really down on myself (if it was bad), or I'd feel pride for a moment (if it was good)... before getting down on myself for feeling pride (a good would turn into a bad). I was an emotional wreck. I also only "felt" in these moments instead of feeling constantly. My emotions were almost always turned off. My life was all about the goals, not the journey, and at the end of those goals I'd either receive a fleeting emotional reward or punishment. It was a very dualistic way of experiencing things.

Occasionally we may find ourselves asking guiltily: "why did I do that?!" This is the conscious aspect criticizing a programmed response which had undesirable consequences. I used to get down on myself after making a mistake instead of appreciating the chance to learn and grow from it. This is where conscious ego excels, by figuring things out. By making a realization I feel pride. But the pride is more of a maternal feeling like being proud of your child. There's that disassociation again!

While the conscious aspect excels at learning new things, the subconscious aspect excels at perfecting programmed responses through repetition (like how we get better at driving a car while not thinking about it consciously). I think it's important to take responsibility for those programmed responses even if we didn't put them all there, because we have the ability to reprogram and update them.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
I am often astounded at how many people will point to the Ego and ascribe blame to for what would accurately be a phenomenon of the Id. People will suggest that people's downfall happen because of an Ego out of control, but the reality it was an Id, demanding obscene amounts of pleasure, and even pain as pleasure, just as long as it is some form of stimulation that does not take near as much effort as the stimulation that would come from an Ego.

I concur partially with this as I think it can be one or the other that's the problem. The id is powerful! I wouldn't say that it's incredible levels of desire are bad in and of themselves, but without a balanced ego they can certainly manifest in undesirable ways. It's the ego's job to think ahead and attempt to predict the consequences of satisfying (or not satisfying) the id.

reply to post by circlemaker


Ego drives people into creation. When I make music, I know that I suck in all logical senses, but I do not tell myself that. I say: "You will make a song that no one else will think of." It is true, even to my logical senses, so it drives me to become original. Ego is only a problem when it distances you from other people you care about Of course, if it distances you from people you do not care of, then who the hell cares?