Chapter 2: Ego Plant
Your ego is your self-preservation. It is a natural-occurrence as it is also a benefit for survival. With fear as the driving force, we have been conditioned to never feel comfortable letting go of this function, as it may become an invitation to pain. As a result, we try to make good choices to live a life where even in death, we can hopefully leave on our own terms. Yet, this function is not strong enough to keep us alive. This is because our egos have manifested many functions.
The essential, inherent function of self-preservation has learned a sense of superiority and a sense of victim-hood. When we feel pain, we take this pain as our own. When we hurt others we take the justification as our own. It should be understood that we all are sensitive, and in a ‘macro perspective’ it is understood. However, within each individual the ego can disagree, believe it is the exception, then bolster itself further into its additional functions as means to self-preserve. This cycle then gives the ego enough depth to attach itself deeper into your concept of self, concept of others and your world view; whether to convince you the world is ‘for you’ or ‘against you’.
Our self-preservation function has weakened with time. As mentioned in chapter 1, we fear our reflection and therefore don’t like to be seen. To be seen is to be told you’re wrong for your actions or responses; that they aren’t ‘normal’. People have become more afraid of their ego dying rather than their being. Denying a worldview built from ego feels like having to accept the life lived thus far was wasted. Through denial, ego has overcome death, living on as energy to plague and condition humans to reproduce it and make it immortal; make it ‘the norm’. Despite us having innate natural protection programmed into us, we’ve allowed a weak spot to develop that is killing the planet, a lack of empathy.
The suffering is not anyone’s fault but the actions are our responsibilities. This begins the debate of ‘good and bad’ which has become rooted in our day to day. From a macro perspective, we ask who is morally right or wrong. From a micro perspective, we ask who conducts themselves well or poorly. Ego differences had become cultural differences, which were then neutered to genetic differences and biased beliefs. These are used to further reinforce the world view of dead men. Misogyny, racism, classism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia are all ego differences taught to become bigotry.
The human brain’s ability to compartmentalize forgets its ability to connect and find relation. Empathy is the friend of ego, but empathy is the enemy of ego, from its view. Empathy is not just the understanding of others, as much as it is the understanding that others are just like you. The differences we see in nature that we co-exist with and respect to the best of our ego’s ability, are themselves reminders and reflections of who we are within. But recognizing the pain that our ego holds feels like inviting the death of its identity. We cope by limiting our ego’s ability and as a consequence, we’ve learn to not be fully receptive to empathy.
In this world of conditional love, an unexplored function we all have within is a sense of imperfectness. What I would call earnestness, it is the energy that most other creatures on this planet possess and harness. The function is silenced and manipulated by a pained ego to hide itself away in exchange for control. However if the ego is seen in full, this function is truly a marvel to possess. You may have experienced it when you did something nice for someone unprompted, or a sudden burst of joy in a time of pain or an act of self-sacrifice. It comes from being one with yourself, which means being one with the reflection of you in others. This function rewards you by rewarding the world around you with interaction that treats you how you would want to be treated, not how you were treated. To channel this is unconditional love.