Ego Sickness

[Cramulus]

Ego Sickness

You know how a virus works? It goes into a cell and changes the code so that the cell only produces more virii. In a way the virus steals the cell's identity, making it a part of a viral system.

If you ask me, the worst phase of being sick is when you've been sick for so long you forget what it's like to be well. In a way, you've lost a bit of yourself and become the virus.

People catch and spread memes like viruses. They're contageous, self-replicating little buggers. Like any virus, their goal is to spread themselves, to become a large, healthy, self-sustaining colony. We have to be careful how we handle memes because at a certain point its difficult to tell the difference between when we're using the memes and when the memes are using us.

This is not to say that memes are harmful diseases. But some of them can be if you get infected, infested, obsessed and invested.

One of the most pervasive and prevalent memes in this modern world is the meme called I Am. We live in an overpopulated era, floating in a sea of interchangable people. In this ocean our biggest life perserver is a sense of individuality - the notion that each and every one of us is unique, distinct. One wants to say "I am not the crowd. I am not the group. I am not just another cog in the machine."

We jump through personal hoops to distinguish ourselves from the others. We customize our identities so as to retain a sense of self, a buoy bobbing in the tide of the collective.

But this ego meme can become a disease. In moderation, it helps us understand ourselves. In excess, we define ourselves. In time, these definitions become rigid, inflexible.

Consider, for example, the "C student". In his attempt to understand himself, he internalizes "I am a C student." Armed with that identity he has no drive to do better. He accepts "who he is".

Or consider the average voter. He identifies with a political party and probably agrees with them about many things. The party tells him which sides of any given issues to support - no need to think for oneself there!

It can be a sickness.

The Machine, of course, is programmed to capitalize on this sickness. There are a variety of memes available to customize your identity. What color iPod do you want? Which TV shows are YOUR TV shows? What brand of cologne smells like YOU?

I am not suggesting that people abandon their sense of self. But I do think that people get addicted to self-definition and it leads to inflexibility.

(Don Juan speaking to Castaneda) "Your father knows everything about you", he said. "So he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you". Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept feeding the idea with everything I did. "Don't you see ?", he asked dramatically. "You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.".

(...) "But that's absurd", I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me ? What's wrong with that ?"; "What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance". "But that would be lying". "I'm not concerned with lies or truths", he said severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history".

"You see", he went on, "we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves."

We,Äôre hand in hand in Aftermath
the age of what will be
Horizon smoke is rising
from the wreckage that is We

And in the smoke what shapes will form?
What phantoms will we make?
For we are made of form and formula
but also dross mistake

-from Hand in Hand in Aftermath

[Payne]

I like this.

Does the "I am not" meme have to be inextricably linked to the "I am" though? And where do you think conflicting identities come into it? For example, "I am an enviromentaly concious person, but I am not willing to get taxed to fuck for it, so I'll vote Republican" (a common train of thought, I understand).

If the conflict between these identities is not resolved so that they can both be true, at least for that individual, where does this leave us?

Personally, I think that the more unresolved conflicting identities a person has, the more likely they are to question things, if only because they won't have answers handed to them. The fewer the conflicts, the more likely the individual is to duck his/her head and conform to a "social norm".

Well, that's just a bit of sparking in my brain, from running up against your article, and is probably a bit off track. Stemming mostly from my association of Ego and Identity.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Destroy ego!

Very important.

After destruction ego is rebuilt as a vehicle.

Before destruction you are a passenger.

[Darth Cupcake]

HERE SIR I GOT YUO THESE MITTENS


For the "I am" meme, people do lock themselves into these preconceived notions, just as they lock other people into them. Like in those quotes. I'm currently standing by while the relationship of two of my good friends falls apart. Part of the reason it's going all to hell is because of what one of the people identifies as their "I AM" and "NOW I am" versus how they see the other person as "they are." (Did that make sense? I think it did.) Even between two people who have been very close for a very long time, we still run into the trappings of people being stuck in this preconceived "i am/he is/she is" sort of situation without considering the possibility of flux. In my mind, that is the worst part of the "I am" meme: it tends to become incredibly concrete and modifying it can become an impossibly daunting task.

As for group identity vs. individuality--we want to be unique, but we also want to have a place to fit in. Humans are social, herd animals, as it were. So they all collect into their groups and set rules about how to have acceptance/belonging. So people want to make sure that they ascribe to those rules and that "I am [insert group trend here.]"

The "I am NOT" seems to come in more when peope want to differentiate themselves from something negative. Such as "I am NOT a racist/scientologist/pedo/etc!" It's once again group identity, but this time in the negative. You want to make sure no one mistakes you for ONE OF THEM.

The problem with "I am" is that it is so binary and so concrete, as already discussed. Try telling someone "I'm sort of ____" and you'll find that the "sort of" or "sometimes" or what-have-you tends to disappear and you become concretely _____. I do not consider myself aligned with any political party, yet it's impossible to try to have a discussion about politics with anyone without this coming up and the other person insisting on subscribing me to a party. We resort to "am/am not" because it makes things easier to organize and think about. Thus, it must be a simple yes/no binary, and it must be incredibly concrete. By making it constant, it becomes easier to work with.

People should not be constant. Not that constant, not that binary.

[P3nT4gR4m]

HERE SIR I GOT YUO THESE MITTENS


For the "I am" meme, people do lock themselves into these preconceived notions, just as they lock other people into them. Like in those quotes. I'm currently standing by while the relationship of two of my good friends falls apart. Part of the reason it's going all to hell is because of what one of the people identifies as their "I AM" and "NOW I am" versus how they see the other person as "they are." (Did that make sense? I think it did.) Even between two people who have been very close for a very long time, we still run into the trappings of people being stuck in this preconceived "i am/he is/she is" sort of situation without considering the possibility of flux. In my mind, that is the worst part of the "I am" meme: it tends to become incredibly concrete and modifying it can become an impossibly daunting task.

As for group identity vs. individuality--we want to be unique, but we also want to have a place to fit in. Humans are social, herd animals, as it were. So they all collect into their groups and set rules about how to have acceptance/belonging. So people want to make sure that they ascribe to those rules and that "I am [insert group trend here.]"

The "I am NOT" seems to come in more when peope want to differentiate themselves from something negative. Such as "I am NOT a racist/scientologist/pedo/etc!" It's once again group identity, but this time in the negative. You want to make sure no one mistakes you for ONE OF THEM.

The problem with "I am" is that it is so binary and so concrete, as already discussed. Try telling someone "I'm sort of ____" and you'll find that the "sort of" or "sometimes" or what-have-you tends to disappear and you become concretely _____. I do not consider myself aligned with any political party, yet it's impossible to try to have a discussion about politics with anyone without this coming up and the other person insisting on subscribing me to a party. We resort to "am/am not" because it makes things easier to organize and think about. Thus, it must be a simple yes/no binary, and it must be incredibly concrete. By making it constant, it becomes easier to work with.

People should not be constant. Not that constant, not that binary.

Loaded with ugly memes 

[Cain]

http://mihd.net/v2jf3u Poker without Cards
http://mihd.net/vo7fi8 The Selfish Meme

[Darth Cupcake]

Touche, Cybin, touche.

-DC
pwned

[LHX]

Destroy ego!

Very important.

After destruction ego is rebuilt as a vehicle.

Before destruction you are a passenger.

11/10

[faust]

the pride of the "I am's" is the thing I find hardest when conversing with people. All people have it to an extent, but its intolerable in some. Its what has ruined gamers.
I saw it summed up here best in the random news banner: "please stop trying to convince us how interesting you are" or something to that effect.

as to identifying yourself through different aspects both physically(car etc) and intellectual masturbation(I am, I am, I AM), it is necessary to a degree I think, *I am* incapable of rationalizing anything any more so I primarily go off instinct, for those who would make the rules of civilization, very clear but flexible "I am's" and "we are" is needed, but that might be wrong, it might cut through some moral ambiguity that comes of where the line is drawn in the sand.

[Jasper]

Didn't Jung say something about depression being a product of being too high up in your own abstractions?

I think it ties in, but you'd have to think about it to see how...

[Jenne]

When I first read the OP, I had a hard time coming to terms with what the problem was with the inflexibility of the notion of self.  I think it actually, in essence, goes beyond the notion of self and is instead the inflexibility that is the problem.  Lack of pragmatism, lack of ability to see beyond what you've predefined or what has already been defined for you is the real beartrap, I believe.

Sense of self is inborn and then reworked within the system you live with as a child, then as an adult.  Not many people know they have a choice to change this when they are old enough to do so.  And some have it changed without knowing what really happened--they instead see the bottom falling out of their known-universe and cavil.

Humans, I've come to believe, are truly flexible by nature. But we still cling to what's familiar in order to preserve that flexibility.  Constant motion and change are only endurable as long as you can accept the constancy of the motion, if that makes any sense.  It's why we label things, find systematic and programmatic answers for what confuses us, and why answers are always sought, no matter how unimportant the question.

When the self is at question, there are so many parts to the self, I think sometimes we forsake one part or many parts in order to preserve the part that seems to bring the most benefit.  I know I divide parts of me for different people, and it's rare I'm the whole for any one person.  For that reason alone I know I am fairly flexible in the main, and why I can get a lot done or many different things done with smaller effort.

Maybe flexibility is something that is better suited to certain personalities/types of people than others.  In fact, I'd posit there are whole societies that solidify their "collective" by devaluing the sense of flexibility in ego/sense of self.  Be the same, and see yourself as the same.  I don't think my own subculture does this, even though they do impress upon you to take up whatever is the flavor of the day in pop-psych and endgoals, elsewise you are a "loser"...

[Jasper]

Mittens, I think I can dig it if I follow correctly.

[Jenne]

...yeah, it reads like so much bullshit, don't it? 

[LMNO]

As an example of inflexibility of self, please look at what has happened to Paris Hilton.

Talk about a paradigm change.  She's in jail, for real, and she simply can't adapt  & handle it.  She's on the verge of complete mental breakdown.


It's awesome.

[Jenne]

Yeah...I sorta had my rantup about that on Sunday in the open bar...