My enormous ego wonders if ego is real

Yesterday Walker left a comment on a recent post that included an insult:

Your valiant attempts to encourage Brian to examine his own comments is wasted, he is blinded by his own enormous ego.

Well, let's say attempted insult.

Because I responded by telling Walker that we must be ego-brothers. After all, what would make someone say that another person has an enormous ego except...ego?

So we must be talking degrees of enormity here.

Now, with another male organ it's a compliment to be told, "You've got a big one!" But with the ego, smaller usually is considered better-- especially by religions.

Buddhism and other Eastern faiths urge us toward ego-loss. Christianity preaches humility, turning the other cheek, and bowing down before God. Which leads me to wonder:

Why would it be an insult to tell a guy who runs a Church of the Churchless blog that he has an enormous ego? My motivation for wanting a tiny ego certainly wouldn't be religious.

And it goes without saying that anyone who has a blog isn't lacking inventory in the Ego Department. (You've got to believe that the world is dying to know that your cat just had kittens, four black and one calico!)

Here's a bigger problem with Walker's comment. I've got no idea how big my ego is. In fact, I don't even know if it exists. Where the hell is it?

Tell me, then maybe I could measure it. "Ego" is an abstraction, not all that other-worldly than "God." Nobody has ever seen an ego. Just like God.

Of course, something can exist and not be visible. Quarks, for example. However, their effects can be seen.

So tell me what "Ego" is supposed to do, how it has an effect in the world, and then maybe I could figure out a way to measure how large mine is compared to the average.

It might turn out, though, that ego ends up being both (1) an illusive concept, and (2) more positive than everyday speech and ego-hating religions make it out to be.

Meaning, actions associated with "ego" could be so intertwined with the ability to get things done in the world that "You've got a big ego!" could be viewed as almost synonymous with You're effective.

But I don't know for sure. That shows I'm pretty humble, doesn't it? Countering this indication of humility, however, is my desire to show off my knowledge of Sartre's "Being and Nothingness." 

It's 811 pages long! I bet my philosophical book is more enormous than yours!

Here's a passage from the translator's introduction I came across this morning that seems to support my position on ego -- which is why I'm quoting it, naturally. ("Being-in-itself" basically is unconscious existence, while "Being-for-itself" is what conscious creatures like you and I are.)

The divergency becomes more still more apparent if we compare Sartre's view with that of certain Eastern philosophies which identify desire with suffering and advocate the total annihilation of desire as a means of salvation. Here there are two important disagreements.

In the first place, with Sartre, to destroy all desire would be to destroy the For-itself -- not in the nothingness of Nirvana but absolutely. A satisfied For-itself would no longer be a For-itself. The For-itself is desire; that is, it is the nihilating project toward a Being which it can never have or be but which as an end gives the For-itself its meaning.

In the second place, desire is not placed on the same level by Sartre and, for example, Buddhism. In the latter, desire is the quality of the lesser personalized Self which must be destroyed if one is to realize one's greater non-personal potentialities.

But with Sartre, desire in its most fundamental sense belongs not to the psyche but to the non-personal consciousness. Only the derived specific desires are determined and evaluated in terms of the Ego, which, we may recall, is itself an object of consciousness.

Here again we find that the goal of Buddhism is part of Sartre's human data. Guilt for Buddhism lies in the specific desires of the personal self; guilt for Sartre is cherishing the illusion of possessing an absolute Self.

On a lighter note...

I love how Twitter feeds, a.k.a. Tweets, sometimes combine randomly to produce existential meaning when I turn on my iPhone and check what Twitterers I follow have been Tweeting about.

Here's a photo of what I saw this morning. (click to enlarge) Per usual, I find Bob Tzu's Tweets the most profound, in their non-profundity.

The main message I got from my iPhone, though, is how I wasn't able to use my iPhone's camera to take a photo of itself. That irritated me, because it's tougher to get images from my Sony camera into my laptop.

Why couldn't I point my iPhone at itself and capture an image of it? Hmmmm. When I figure that out I'll be ready to measure my ego, I guess.

Comments

[rakesh bhasin]

Dear Brian,

Whatever little I understand is that our physical being ia a manifestation of "ego" only.

It dies with our body. Then our ego rests either beneath the earth goes in flames/ ashes.

with due regards,

[tAo]

Well I happen to one who does not think that a small ego (or no ego) is somehow desirable.

I happen to think that ego is simply a sense of self-worth and self-interest and a sense of differentaton from others humans. And thats a real good thing imo.

Also, I don't see this "ego" as an entity, but rather merely a process of identifcation and differentiation.

I've seen people who have little or no sense of self-worth and self-interest (what you might call 'no ego'). They are ususally either self-destructive and suicidal losers, or they are mentally ill. They generally have little or no appreciation for the wonder of life & existence.

Others wish to lose themselves, thinking that in doing so, they will somehow attain some supposed spiritual salvation. That is a delusion imo.

So I'm not trying to diminish or annilate my ego like some folks who subscribe to varous eastern philosophies. The ego is what makes human beings human.

[Rain]

I think like tAo that ego is healthy and not having one would be like denying our worth, even our own existence.

[walker]

Brian, would you understand if someone expressed great sadness, even if you cannot measure the size of sadness? You point out, as have others, as an anti-religious attribute, great ego is compliment, yet you assume insult. Consider the implication of being blinded by self worth, your views are so strong as to overide those of others. Great for political leaders, dictators, heads of state etc. Not so good for a blog with spirit of open enquiry, but we know already, this is Brians blog, he can do as he damn well pleases !!!!

[Brian]

Walker, I guess I was mistaken. I did assume that you meant an insult by saying that I had an enormous ego. My bad.

So thank you for the compliment. With your support I'll keep on being the sort of Brian that I so enjoy. And you should keep on being the sort of Walker that you so enjoy.

Let's think like Sartre for a moment: I have desires; you have desires; everybody has desires. Ultimately, he says (to my understanding, at least) every desire is a sort of longing for Being-in-itself which can't ever be fulfilled.

It can't, because we are conscious beings, not Being-in-itself. This is the way things are. This is the way things have to be. If we weren't a conscious being, a For-itself, we would be nothing (or Being-in-itself, which amounts to the same thing, nothing, because it is unconscious).

You can judge others for seeming to have more desires, or stronger desires, or different desires, than you. But you also have desires. Such as a desire to leave comments on a churchless blog.

I can't be anyone other than who I am. Neither can you. Sartre, as an existentialist, preaches authenticity. We can't avoid our For-itself'ness. That's what I'm out to do -- be authentic. So are you.

Thus as I said before, we're brothers. Every human is -- brother or sister to every other human. Siblings argue, disagree, fight, make up, start over again. This is what they do. This is what we are.

[walker]

Oops!

I had mis-categorized this blog in my bookmarks under "philosophical debate", now corrected to "light entertainment".

[Nancy]

Brian,

You have totally misunderstood Sartre.
This is not fast-food philosophy where you can impose your own spin on what you think Sartre is saying.
Besides if you want to bang on about the ego, its Nietzche you want mein fuhrer.

Rather get back to the stuff u know something about than bastardizing the worlds great thinkers through american oversimplification.

[Brian]

walker, excellent news. As an admirer of Taoism, I'm all for philosophy being "light entertainment." If we can't laugh, we're probably not learning much.

Nancy, I just read the translator's introduction to Sartre's "Being and Nothingness." When I wrote the comment where I mention Sartre, I checked the translator's description of Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself. I'm quite sure what I said is how the translator of Sartre's work describes this aspect of Sartre's philosophy.

If you disagree with something I said, please cite it so we can discuss the subject. Simply saying "You have totally misunderstood Sartre" isn't helpful, especially since I just read the lengthy overview of Being and Nothingness written by Sartre's translator.

[Randy]

I don't know about this ego stuff but to take a screen shot on your iPhone hold down the home button and the power key at the same time.

[Brian]

Randy, thanks. This must be the key to non-dual enlightenment, being able to capture reality from within it.

Hold down the home button and power key at the same time. Got it. I heard a click. Where is the image, though? How do I access it and share it?

Also, where are the corresponding "capture reality from within it" gizmos in my own psyche that I can press?

[Randy]

It goes right to your photo file. Very cool.