The Simple Secret to Cutting Your Ego In Half

The basic assumption we all have a tendency to make is --
I know what I'm doing,
and if I fail to get what I want, it's not my fault.

We give ourselves credit for the good things we achieve,
but pass the buck ever so easily for our mistakes and failures.

Scientifically, one could argue that happy, confident people
are (slightly) delusional.

There are myriad self-serving biases,
served up on a daily basis,
by all of us,
a handful of "saints" and "monks" aside.

Would you be surprised if I told you
I'm an excellent driver.

But not only am an an excellent driver,
I'm more honest,
more ethical,
more impartial than average.

And I'm not surprised if you say the same thing
about yourself, and your motivations
are probably purer than average.

And you think you handle your liquor
better than average.

Oh, but our weakness are common,
just part of being human,
essentially trivial, fuhgeddaboudit.

I'm going to live ten years longer than
the statistical average --
I'm sure you are too.

If you're successful,
it's because of your innate talents,
your innate you-ness.
More importantly, it could not have been otherwise.

Because of your you-ness (and success)
it's inconceivable that you could have been a failure.

If you fall from success,
it won't be your fault --
some external circumstance will be to blame.

On the scale of memory,
scientifically we remember success
more than failure.

***
The real question, as I write these words,
is do you believe that the things I'm talking about
don't affect you as much as they would others --
these cognitive biases, dissonances, etc?

It's a delicate balance --
to those who know me personally,
they may have reached a point where
I talk too much about the concept of --
"Killing One's Ego."

What I've found is (and I'll have to research
Carl Jung to know specifically where he says this)
that Jung was right --
One needs a really BIG ego in the first place,
to actually have a chance of KILLING one's ego.

So this balance --
self-serving biases are too essential to living a happy life --
you need to first be able to do this --
to delude yourself into being happy --
and even be happy, just happy,
albeit openly deceitful (to yourself and others) --
without even giving room to the notion
of ego destruction, just yet.

Stay deluded, then, for auld lang syne.

Optimistic people stay at task
longer than pessimists;
the optimistic have more friends;
on top of the self-esteem.

We'll get to ego destruction once I know
you're finally bored with the bloated ego stage.

For now, odds are,
you've learned one thing better than all else:
helplessness.

Your ego isn't big enough,
because it's been beaten out of you.

My Psychosis, My Bicycle & I

From Fritz B. Simon's book:

(page 39)
"The long-haul truck driver and his co-driver
in their 4.20-meter high truck
come to an overpass with the sign:
'Only for vehicles less than 3.80 meter height.'

"The driver puts on his brakes and says,
'We have to find another way, we can't get through here!'

"His co-driver replies,
'Come on, step on it. Nobody's looking.'"

***
(page 50)
"There is no difference between behavior and insight.
Living beings manifesting the same behavior
furnish the same description of their environment.

"This is a view held by the biologist Humberto Maturana,
who compares behavior as 'first-order description'
with linguistic description as 'second-order description,'
that is, as description of the description."

***
(page 51)
"If behavior of the individual is the basis for a consensus on reality,
that consensus can best be achieved where all human beings share
similar or comparable behaviors.

"These behaviors are inevitably an experience determined by
autonomous bodily functions and processes.

"They are experienced as elementary needs and their satisfaction:
hunger/food,
thirst/drink,
tiredness/sleep,
and the like.

"But these bodily necessities only dictate relatively few
stereotypical behaviors that are valid equally
for all people in all cultures."

Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues All Day Every Day Forever and Ever

The next time you take a gander at the world,
and turn back inward thinking to yourself,
"What a that other human being is,
what a dolt!"

They're over there, doing something so stupid,
something you would never do, no lie --
stop.

Don't stop thinking the other human is a moron.
She probably is.
But so are you,
sometimes.

So here's the trick:
(Remember, we can't solve past problems; we can't even solve present problems; all we can do is remind ourselves and steel ourselves for the next time.)

You have to think of yourself,
at your worst,
as stupider than the guy jogging down the street,
music blaring from his device,
sans headphones,
the music is tinny and annoying for everyone,
even him, one would surmise.

Your XYZ (addiction), your late night self
after a long day of practical life,
chores, errands, homework, whatnot --
turns ordinary smart-you into dumb-as-the-rest-of-em-you.

It's okay. The prefrontal cortex can only
be expected to do so much.

Our perceptions of other people have the benefit
of being polished by the edited persona they each create.
In other words, we don't see them at their XYZ worst.

You have to see yourself at your XYZ worst.
And that is truly the difficult thing.

***
For me, there's being harsh on oneself on the one hand,
and being harsh on oneself to effective purpose on the other.

The first harshness I see in me all the time,
and in others I see it and presume its presence.

The second harshness is obviously the point.

I know about my XYZ.
I know it's bad.
I know I shouldn't XYZ as often as I do.
I know I should go to XYZ-Anonymous meetings to treat
my XYZ habit.

But as harsh as I am in every other area of my life,
when it comes to XYZ,
no matter how chronic the abuse,
no matter how prevalent the dissonance,
XYZ always escapes blame with a slap on the wrist.

But not when I treat that dumb part of me
as the dumb dumb dumbyhead with the tinny music,
the road-rager,
the negative nancys*
and pusillanimous pewdiepies.*

Two Brains, Not Working Together (All The Time)

From Rewire by Dick O'Connor:

The discovery that the brain changes physically in response to our life experience is the biggest news in psychology in decades. Neuroscientists know now that all habits have a physical existence in the structure of the brain.

Their early traces were laid down in childhood and adolescence. As we practice bad habits more and more, they become like railroad tracks -- the only way to get from here to there, from stress to relief -- and we ignore the fact that there are much healthier and more direct ways of getting what we need. 

So under stress we take a drink, or have a snack, or pick a fight, or get depressed, all without awareness that we have made a decision; our bad habits operate unconsciously. This is one of the forces behind the undertow -- it's so difficult to overcome bad habits because they are etched in the brain. 

They don't go away as we practice better behavior; they just fall into disuse, so they can easily be revived. 

***
Say you've been eating unhealthily for years. You start out on a diet hoping to lose ten pounds in two weeks. When you don't, you get discouraged and give up. But you wouldn't expect to learn to play the guitar after only a few weeks' practice, or speak a foreign language, or type like a master. 

Yet because we know perfectly well what we have to do to change ourselves, and it seems so simple, we expect to overcome a lifetime of bad habits in only a few weeks. 

Just because it's simple, doesn't mean it's easy. Habits die hard. Each time we engage in a bad habit, we make it more likely we'll do it again in the future.

But in the same way, each time we engage in a good habit, we make it more likely that we'll do it again.

You can learn to program your own brain so that making the right choices and exercising will power comes to seem easy and natural. Focused attention and practice, repeated over and over, will change the brain's reward system, so that bad habits will lose their appeal and be replaced by new, self-constructive behavior patterns. 

Addiction, Defined 1

So you've been doing XYZ for a while now.
It's safe to call it a compulsive behavior pattern.
Whatever it is.

You COULD call it an addiction, if you wanted to.
But I wouldn't, and don't.

Whatever XYZ is, it lives inside you.
It's a personality or a subpersonality.
An energy field or an uncontrollable genetic situation.

Whatever it is, sometimes it takes you over
completely, sometimes arguing, sometimes skipping over
the rational, questioning phase of things.

Just try stopping a second or three when you want
XYZ.

Our main tactic for eliminating bad, onerous XYZ --
is a replacement with good, positive, life-affirming
ABC...D...E...F...as long as needed.

And A is meditation or awareness.
If you can't stop XYZ today, don't.
If it's not easy, don't.

An elderly woman who fashioned herself a
teacher of men once told me
"think of the cigarette as a turd."

that didn't work for me.
but thinking about her statement
was an equivalent evocation of the Prefrontal.

But you've had a bad day.
Okay, you could go there.
The compulsion knows how to deal with a bad day.

But that's not the only way to go.
And furthermore, there are nuances w/r/t
how one approaches one's compulsions.

In the light, thinking about your addiction,
while indulging, partaking, gorging in and on XYZ --
totally different from hiding it from you and everyone else.

So if quitting's not for you,
your idea of quitting is too stentorian.

Back off, in the sense --
thinking about quitting, really thinking about it,
like JRR Tolkien with his imaginary worlds.

Think about the Silmarillion.*
Make your thinking about XYZ honestly
while indulging XYZ,
as elaborate and involved as Tolkien's obsession with his worlds.

Do you even know half of what there is to know
about XYZ?

Maybe you avoid this question because you know
there is nothing positive to find.

However, it's difficult for me to think of an
instantiation of XYZ that doesn't have some positive element.

Even nicotine is good for memory.

*JRR Tolkien's books The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings series, are popular, long, involved, sometimes boring, but most decidedly epic, and the handiwork of an obsessive-compulsive writer -- a writer who went so far as to invent entire languages, plural, for the entirely invented species, plural many times over, in his book.

Silly Ego

Eckhart Tolle writes:

Is it wrong then to be proud of one's possessions or to feel resentful toward people who have more than you? Not at all. That sense of pride, of needing to stand out, the apparent enhancement of one's self through "more than" and diminishment through "less than" is neither right nor wrong -- it is the ego.

The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious.

When you observe the ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile.

At times you may even laugh.*

How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.

***


*It's not working for me right now, but nearly every time when I set my mind on arriving at presence in the Now, it arrives with a tiny chuckle. It's more of a release than anything. That, I get every time, without fail, to the point that the two are the same thing to me now. 

Presence equals release, borderline hilarity.

What else could it feel like, to unburden yourself of the weight of the past and the future?

The Undertow

In Rewire, O'Connor writes:

The Undertow is my term for the mysterious force that sabotages our best efforts when we're just on  the edge of victory. The awful truth is that most of our efforts at self-reform, even those that meet with great initial success, will fail within two years, and send us back where we started. 

Something keeps sucking us back in.

You stay on your diet and lose 40 pounds, but then you have a bad week and you're doomed. Within just a few months you put back on all the weight you struggled so hard to lose, and you've added evidence to your belief that you're hopeless.

We can't overcome this undertow by doing only what we already know how to do; we have to change some basic assumptions about ourselves and modify some habits that we don't yet understand are part of the problem.

***
[The Good News:] -- Neuroscientists have now shown that if we simply practice good habits, our brains will grow and change in response, with the result that these good habits become easier and easier. 

When we do anything repeatedly, with focused attention, our nerve cells will physically grow new connections between, say, nerve center A (go to the gym) and nerve center B (stay at the gym until your workout is done). Nerves A and B develop a stronger connection with more transmitting and receiving points, and going to do our workout becomes a habit with a physical embodiment in the brain.

Neurons that fire together, wire together. 

We forget our aches and pains and distractions, and do it. And every time we do it, we make it easier to do tomorrow.

List of Self-Destructive Behaviors (56-85)

56. Won't ask for help.

57. Suffering in silence.

58. Too much Crystal Meth.

59. Fashion addiction.

60. Sexual promiscuity.

61. Casual sex without a relationship.

62. Picking hopeless fights with authority.

63. Too much TV.

64. Too much Crack Cocaine.

65. Too much normal Cocaine.

66. Unassertive behavior.

67. Overly Assertive Behavior.

68. Too much worrying over Assertive/Unassertive binary.

69. Excessive risk taking.

70. Depressed shopping.

71. Wallowing in Depression.

72. Computer game addiction.

73. Being needy, clingy.

74. Obsessive worrying.

74. Too much heroin.

75. Sex addiction.

76. Playing the martyr.

77. Acting on dares.

78. Dangerous driving.

79. Road rage.

80. Shoplifting.

81. Sexual degradation, self.

82. Sexual degradation, others.

83. Spoiling things just when they're going well.

84. Stubbornly persisting beyond common sense.

85. Hoarding.

List of Self-Destructive Behaviors (1-55)

Am I leaving any self-destructive behaviors out? Or, is there any behavior included that shouldn't on the list? Are there any behaviors listed which you feel are a part of the pattern of your life, but that you don't consider to be negative habits?

***

Self-Destructive Behavior Patterns

***

1. Internet Addiction

2. Overeating

3. Social Isolation

4. Gambling

5. Overworking

6. Not Exercising

7. Anorexia

8. Bulimia

9. Video Game Addiction

10. Sports-related Addiction

11. Passive-Aggressive Behavior

12. Not managing money (generally)

- - accruing debt

- - not saving

- - profligate spending

16. Substance abuse

17. Self-dosing your medications

18. Being cruel, thoughtless 

19. Being selfish, thoughtless

20. Narcissism, generally

21. Suicidal gestures

22. Antisocial behavior

23. Self-mutilation

24. Chronic Disorganization

25. Foolish pride 

26. Avoiding the spotlight

27. Perfectionism

28. Can't get started job hunting

29. Sycophancy

30. Manipulating to gain affection

31. Manipulating to gain power

32. Excessively high standards, for self

33. Excessively high standards, for others

34. Cheating

35. Embezzlement

36. Money addiction

37. Procrastination

38. Neglecting your health

39. Always late

40. Inconsiderate

41. Poor sleep habits

42. Inability to express yourself

43. Self-sacrificing gift giving

44. Obvious lying

45. Stealing and kleptomania

46. Inability to prioritize, generally

   -- spreading oneself too thin

   -- too many balls in the air

   -- paralysis by analysis dilettante

50. Attraction to the wrong people

51. Avoiding the chance to express your talents

52. Staying in bad job

53. Staying in a bad relationship

54. Staying in a bad situation other than the two just named

55. Smoking

Willpower Harnessing Hostility

Or does the hostility muscle the will power into play?

I reviewed my willpower plan like a school lesson; 

I became aware of my hostility & 

directed it against everything; 

I had to combat everything; 

my deliverance depended on myself alone.

              Writes Andre Gide.

Deliverance being anything but the word we would use.

Remind me to check the original French.

A lot of us might say Coping,

Or Coping Mechanism,

Against everything, as in Louis C.K.

Saying life is shit wall to wall,

Against everything,

But everything in here,

Not out there.

What does out there have to do with anything?