Tag: ego

Posted on

The Ego and Public Feedback

When we examine nature and human behavior, we discover that it is driven by ego, which cares about only two things: feeling pleasure and avoiding pain. If we examine ourselves closely, we will realize that apart for basic necessities, we inherit all desires from the society we live in: what we eat, how we dress, the jobs we choose, the goods we covet, and our attitudes toward the rest of the world. We acquire our preferences from those whom we are taught to respect and admire.

 

Moreover, once our basic needs are secured, some develop a desire to rule over others and take advantage of them. Once we determine what we want, we start looking for ways to get what we want. This is why we are so dependent on the society – it is a supplier of our desires and the means to satisfy them.

For this reason, if we build a society that values cooperation and compassion for others, we will avoid selfishness, over-consumption, and pursuit of fame, fortune, and power in order to gain others’ recognition and approval.

One way or the other, the ego demands connection with the society while envisioning itself as the ruler. But society can “implant” us with the opposite values, without shattering the ego: Do be great, be proud, be all you can be and more! But do it in a constructive way rather than destructive.

In other words, the ego, which is used to gaining personal benefit at the expense of others, can gradually be transformed – through the influence of the environment, the society we are in.

Picture a person running for office. What are his or her objectives? To be in power, to prove that they know best! They want to run the government, make new laws, and establish a new order. Yet, what do they say to the public? Something along the lines “I will serve everyone, work for the common good; I will treat you all as my own family.”

 

This is an example of how one’s connection with the society compels a person to show an altruistic attitude, even if it is mere words,  prompted by noting but egoistic intentions and strife for personal gain. Imagine what we could achieve if society could, in fact, induce altruistic attitudes within us, rather than empty words! 

 

 

When candidates running for office make promises—“I will create jobs,” “I will provide housing, financial security,” and so on—the society must hold them accountable. If candidates wish to be elected, they must know that they are expected to be accountable for the promises they made. In return, the people will value and recognize their leadership. They will gain respect, power, and social approbation according to their efforts to serve their constituencies.

Likewise, we need not complain, blame, or demand someone to change since it is pointless and unrealistic. Instead, we can influence a person (be it a leader or not) indirectly, through public feedback, into gladly accepting the assigned responsibilities and following through on them.

Such an approach would create an encouraging environment for a person to adapt behaviors in accord with the nature of society, just as a plant grows and acts in accord with the temperature, moisture, atmospheric pressure, and other conditions in its environment. Moreover, the process itself would be enjoyable and rewarding, just as a child enjoys playing with others and learning at the same time.

 

Posted on

Internal Enemy

We have always been egoistically pushed forward by nature; we have always followed it blindly; in other words, we were instinctively pushed forward by our desire to keep fulfilling ourselves, and as it kept manifesting in us, we strove towards wealth, fame, power, knowledge—anything at all.

As a result, we have reached certain satiety, and our egoism has come to a dead end; we cannot even say that it keeps growing. On one hand, there is a certain line of reevaluation of our values: “Is it right to continue to strive towards the attainment of fame, knowledge, wealth, and power? Is this the meaning of our development?”

On the other hand, we see that our dependence on each other forces us to introduce some other international economic formulas, which must take our interdependence into consideration, in other words, if I will suffer, you will also suffer, no matter how egoistic it now appears to be. Even today, I still try to build my happiness on the suppression of others, base my power on being stronger than others, and by collecting more.

We must take the integration of the world into consideration. And if we do not correspond to this integration, we will not be able to understand the way we are supposed to advance in accordance with the world and nature. Today we feel nature’s challenge, its pressure on us with the only purpose of making us gradually begin to change ourselves to become like it. This has never happened before.

If we were to look at it from an ontological perspective, we would see that nature has always pushed us towards egoistic development. And now, on the contrary, it is showing us that egoistic development has come to an end; in other words, we have completed our development of the still, vegetative, and animate levels, when we were instinctively pushed forward by nature; this is why this level of human development is called animate.

But now we must begin developing on the “human” level, when we understand and perceive the surrounding world to the point of changing ourselves to suit it. Neither the world nor nature are forcing us to change instinctively, evoking these desires in us, which forced us to build a society, economy, technology, etc.: This no longer exists today.

Posted on

Sense Of Self

If our interconnected universe is continually expanding, shouldn’t our identity do the same? In this short, entertaining video, we look at the dynamics that promote and inhibit our expanding sense of self.
Created by Global MindShift and Kenji Williams.

Posted on

Ego: Playing an Altruistic Game

There is little point in discussing how each of us should change since everyone is shaped by one’s immediate environment—family, school, and society. If, however, we begin to act as if we are playing a fun game called “altruism,” it will become the most engaging game we have ever played, a life-changing one. It will be so much fun that we will gladly dedicate all our free time to building a good environment, founded on mutual responsibility. Our egos will gladly join the game because all the ego cares about is feeling good.

Indeed, it is easy to change when motivated by each other’s support. We need only agree to mutual responsibility. This is our “red carpet” to the future we all desire, a life of balance, peace, prosperity, and security. Responsibility is an ability to choose how we respond to our egoism, and at this stage in our individual and collective evolution, we are required to start using it to serve our common interest.

A question may arise: If it is so easy, why haven’t we done this before? The truth is that our egoism has been evolving, and until now, we couldn’t recognize its magnitude and how far it is willing to push us in pursuit of pleasure. We convinced ourselves that the ego helps us advance through competition and winning, and that it drives progress, both personal and collective. We did not regard it as destructive.

Yet, look at how we’ve grown apart. We are separated, alienated, and engrossed in self-entitlement. We never dreamed that this would lead us to the devastating destruction that we are witnessing today. Only now are we beginning to realize the treacherous path we have been treading, the perilous condition we are in. Therefore, now is the time to understand that the only way to reform ourselves is to build a new society.

Like an incubator or a greenhouse, this mutually responsible society can make us able and willing to rise above personal interests for the sake of common good. And the amazing part about it is that with everybody’s support and participation, even our egos will get their pleasures since society will value the unique input of each and everyone of us, for our unique contributions are both crucial and desired.

Imagine how incredible our future will be if all of humanity begins to apply egoism in positive, benevolent ways, so when a person connects with others, he or she will feel affinity and affection toward them, as if we are all family, or a single organism. We will be able to feel and understand every person and the entire world.

Once we begin this process, we will be able to experience humanity within us. We will realize that Nature has brought us to this remarkable stage in our evolution in order for us to feel that we are an integrated collective made of all and every one. When we can feel it, we will be able to utilize the main driving force of our lives correctly—our egoism, which distinguishes us from and lifts us above the animal level. Using it constructively, we will transform ourselves and rise above the human level in which we were born, and into the humane level of existence.

In the pictures: Dr. Patch Adams, MD 

 

 

Posted on

Patch Adams’ Revolution

There is little point in discussing the way each one of us should change, since everybody is shaped by their immediate environment: family, school, and society. If, however, we begin to act as if we are playing a pleasant game called “altruism”, it will become the most engaging and profound game we have ever played – a life-changing one, which is so much fun that we will gladly dedicate all our free time to building a good environment, founded on mutual responsibility. And our ego will have no choice but to release us to this task, since all it cares about is feeling pleasure.

This shouldn’t require much effort for it is easy to change when motivated by each other’s support. We need only agree to mutual responsibility, which is our “red carpet” to the future we all desire, the reality of balance, peace, prosperity, and security. Responsibility is an ability to choose how we respond to our egoism, and at this stage of our individual and collective evolution we are required to start using it to serve our common interest. 

Posted on

How to Live in a New World

First, it is impossible to manage in the new world when each one thinks only about oneself. We have to think about everyone. There is no other choice. This is nature’s law that is being revealed in our times.

Second, every member of society should be concerned about others like organs in one body. In the global world, we need not build egoistic systems for media, governments, social systems, health care, education, etc., which today do not care about what happens to others. What we need to be concerned with is how to build a healthy person in a healthy society. All the systems should be focused on this purpose. This means that there must be one general plan.

The leaders of society must understand that we need to integrate and embrace mutual responsibility, and use our voices and votes to insist on this. Otherwise, each will continue with his protectionism, which will lead to opposition to and destruction of nature.

We should aspire for this same mutually beneficial relationship to exist in the family, children’s education, neighborhoods, cities, nations, and the whole world. This means that we don’t have to develop separate, specific systems for education, culture, and health, but rather we need to work in circles, moving from small circles to wider ones, and eventually encompassing all of humanity.

We have to restructure all international organizations differently, so that this will be their goal and how they aim all their activity at. All the laws in the world should reflect its integrated nature, so that integrality becomes the essential law of our existence. The leadership, courts, and systems for human rights should be aimed only at that.

What stems from the integrative laws influences all spheres of our lives, including factories, companies, and businesses. If a business doesn’t match the essential production system, it is like a splinter that enters a body and infects and harms the whole body.

This is a totally new perception according to which no one has the right make exorbitant profits off of others. Instead, we can discover that it is good business to work together to mutual advantage for everyone involved. This is totally opposite to our present approach and everything will change according to it.

 

Awaken Your Caring for the Whole World – Within You

How can we start caring for the whole world and feel it inside our hearts?

We all exist on one globe, in one circular, closed system, and it is impossible to selectively care for just one part of it, as one would care only about his arm or leg and not care about the rest of the body. Nothing exists “partially” in Nature.

If a person does not care for the common system, the whole of mankind as his body, he does not care for himself. We just have to open our eyes and see that the world is an imprint of what we have inside.
Therefore, the aim isn’t for “me to start caring for the world,” but to open my eyes and see the truth in order to understand that caring for the world and caring for myself is the exact same caring.

This is the inner revolution we have to go through. When a person begins connecting with others and identifying himself with what is outside of his self interest that he previously identified with, then this inner revolution occurs. This blindness and deception are the reason for all the anger, hate, bigotry, and crises we see now.

 

Posted on

Public Opinion – The Key to Change

For hard proof we needn’t look any farther than the communist regime of the former Soviet Union. Human nature will outlast any regime or experiment that contradicts it. In a war against the ego we are doomed to fail from the start, so in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, let’s take a different approach and learn to use the ego to our benefit.

In the 1950s, the now iconic Asch series of experiments proved that public opinion is of primary importance to an individual. Applying this principle to society as a whole, it becomes clear that the “be-all end-all” target of all human endeavors is social status.

We slave away for a bigger house, a newer car, or a fatter bank account only because society dictates that these things are valuable. In essence, though, they are not the goal but mere means to it, while the goal is achieving higher social status. If we lived in a culture where big muscles or high intelligence were the pinnacle of prestige, we would be compelled by society to put the same amount of effort toward achieving excellence in those areas, paying little to no mind to material possessions.

Now imagine a switch got flicked, and we were no longer venerated for our ability to hoard virtual zeroes in the bank, throw the pigskin, or manipulate the stock market. There would be no pleasure in these achievements, and we wouldn’t have any fuel to go after them. And if such things were actually scorned or ridiculed, we would gladly and readily relinquish them all.

It follows that by changing the values in society, even artificially, the entire game gets transformed. If our offspring, friends, and neighbors respected and admired us for our contributions to society, and despised pursuit of personal interests, the same indomitable ego which is threatening the world today would be channeled toward collective benefit and the common good.

The key to such a transformation is public opinion. If we build an environment with abundant examples of favorable behavior toward society, we will finally begin to utilize human nature correctly. Not only is it the only way to survive in the new integrated world, but we will also begin to tap the truly limitless potential inherent to humankind.