Ego lives off the self esteem

A parasite, that thing that nags inside the insides of you making you feel good/completely bad, your Ego is a parasite.

It grazes on the marginal increases (or decreases) of your true value. A value that comes from a compliment, an exaggerated self worth hardly concealing some deep rooted personality flaw, or a misery. It doesn't matter so long your whole focus is put on 'I' every time you try to think of something.

A true value is usually less than what you think of your self and more than what others think of you. Vice versa maybe. There is no equation for it. (My usual answer to this to is NO-ONE so that I stop fearing the fears I made in my head.)

Self esteem is like fast food junk. It helps making the ego grow to eventually become a morbid obese. Until, if you are lucky, something (bad) happens and brings it back to its real state. And then we call that (bad) something a good thing, an experience. Or whatever.

So should you abandon your self esteem? Well..

There is self-esteem and self-respect. With a high self esteem you over emphasize those good things that you have or do. With a high self respect you live trying to fix every flaw you have or do. Confidence comes from self respect and not from self esteem.

Notice how every D-listed celebrity is all over the place with their arrogance and annoying pompous behavior? Totally out of mind. This is what sets great minds that lived and have been living among us from D- & B- listed celebs. Humbleness. Self respect.

MEDIOCRE, NEXT!

We have always feared mediocrity, belonging to the rest of the masses and everyone we call normal are those we do not know.

The simple mind-ness of the ego made us believe that the rest of people are incapable of being anything remarkable because it is a "thought consuming" process.

Once we upgrade a person from being normal to something more special, having more value, the ego is moved in awe.

The ego will need a lot of effort to get back its status in our imaginary world, i.e. being the special one. That's why it is easier for him/her to disregard most of the people it meets.


Image courtesy: Emmy Cicierega (c)

Burden of Praise

Every time you hear a compliment, stop your brain from believing it because if you did, you are killed.

To be defined is to be killed. The word 'define' comes from French 'de finire', to put an end.

When someone praises you, they encircle you in a walled garden. This wall is fragile, it will shake to the next ego stroke and collapse to the smallest quake.

What's beginner's luck anyway?

Picasso

It is acting in a way such that the person isn't aware of the risks, the possibilities and the real deal. It is performance sans ego. It is acting with a certain level of ignorance, accepting and acknowledging such incompetency.

To start with the confidence that you have nothing to lose, not your time, your money or your reputation is the key object to getting luck at your side.

The time comes when a person develops status, reputation and an identity. The identity that normally an ego sides with.

As soon as you have that formed identity, the mind is occupied with certain facts from ego, and the master gets busy protecting the newly found identity, the ego.

How often do we hear about the humbleness of great minds, too good to have an ego. The saying "little person, big ego" is nothing but truth.

In biographical documentations of world's great artists, an artist is usually portrayed as suffering right before his masterpiece is delivered. Suffering to a level of self loath and hate. To a level of major depression. Until there's no ego involved in the process of producing the piece of art.

The different types of happiness

We usually confuse happiness with pleasure. Needs with wants. Satisfaction with settlement, and patience with power.

Happiness is long-lasting, it is a continuous state of mind. Happiness is like the ambient light of a picture, it will show even in the details. It will show despite the shortcomings. In a picture, in spite of the color blotches.

Wants are from Ego. They are pushy, high level, mostly gets you an instant sense of pleasure. It is in the details. When there's too much detail in a picture, the picture gets over-whelmed, crowded, not easy on the eye. Ugly.

To be happy is to embrace flaws, accept them. Giving up some of the details, not to mess up the whole picture.

The who that is you

 (c) Barbara Kruger - Untitled

Labels and tags have been placed on us many years now. Unintentionally, we embrace these labels, own them and prove them right.

We hear comments and compliments all the time. "You're stubborn!", so one acts stubborn in response because when it comes to who we are, we're ignorant .

Inside the materialistic exterior that we have formed --also known as personality, their lays an ego and a mind.

The ego is the who that we have been building up since learning the word 'I'... Forgetting the mind, the why we live and love.

Uniqueness is very common

Gerbera Gallery ((c) different owners flickr)

We have long devoted serious effort to be different, become unique and like.no.other.

Because the ego loves exaggerating its own worth, it keeps drawing lines, elevates itself (and you in the process) to be above the rest of the world, inflating with emptiness.

Fact is, we were born different. From different parents, in different places, on different dates. We keep forgetting this simple fact.

Nobody is the same... we're all equally alike in terms of uniqueness.

What love is...

Human Heart (Mine) [(c) unknown]

Love starts with a condition --I will love you for your love, time, status, gifts, or even food.

Time changes this conditional love to an unconditional, pure love. Motherly love. 

i.e. a woman remains loyal and caring to her violent husband. Customers remain loyal despite the company's fraudulence. People love their country even though it is not so good.

Conditional love is worldly love. The ego needs it. I wants love and Attention.

Unconditional love is related to the mind, the "altered conscious". It is why parents wake up from sleep even before their child cries. It is why a person calls you when they suddenly come to your mind.

Why do you want to lose yourself

Salvator Dali (c)

Every person, at some point in their life, will need to lose their self and if they failed, they lose their minds.

This is how it happens: you lose yourself in a piece of drawing, a poem, music, binging, love, prayer or a book. Name it. I lost myself so many times solving algorithms.

This is why people seek love, they completely lose their sense of self and their mind and feelings stay focused on someone else...

It is how great artists got over their mean self-loathing egos, by focusing their attention, their hands and feelings on the art they make.

When people fail at finding a way to lose their self, they lose their minds, they will need extra help (pills, doctors, electric shocks) to reset their system and bring their ego to ground zero.

the Ego

(c) [I don't know]

I started off complaining about the ego with the assumption that you all know it. Pardon my ignorance.

Scientists explained the self, mind, or conscious differently, the most famous is Sigmund Freud's psyche model.