|
sirreal
devoid
Registered: 01/11/03
Posts: 1,775
Loc: In the borderlands
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
|
Good or bad?
#1377913 - 03/15/03 08:15 AM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
Is our ego good or bad?
Is our ego a way for life to become individualised? Are we lifes way of trying to become more specific? More focused.
Without an ego we would be meaningless abstractions of life. Wouldn't we? What is our purpose here? Are we life trying to solve a problem? Or are we lifes way of trying to reach a goal? Does life have to ignore certain truths about itself in order to accomplish this goal?
You tell me.
-------------------- I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest ----------- I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!
|
Revelation
ॐ
Registered: 08/04/01
Posts: 6,135
Loc: heart cave
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1377930 - 03/15/03 08:26 AM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
It's necessary. That is all.
--------------------
|
sirreal
devoid
Registered: 01/11/03
Posts: 1,775
Loc: In the borderlands
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
|
|
That is not good enough!
What are you saying? Are you telling me that it is not important?
The very thing that Has kept me going for the last ten years is suddenly not important?
I want to know why I am here. That is all that matters to me.
Fuck all the bullshit! Why are we here?
-------------------- I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest ----------- I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!
|
AislingGheal
A wave on the ocean
Registered: 02/22/03
Posts: 988
Loc: Northern Ohio
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1378016 - 03/15/03 09:10 AM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
I'm not sure anyone can provide you with an answer that is good enough. Is ego important? I would think yes, it differentiates your self from others, but it is not necessarily good or bad in and of itself.
-------------------- "I hate having to pick between the lesser of two evils. But I'm glad Obama was elected. McCain was another war monger. I'd rather deal with our country going into debt than trying to take on afghanistan...oh wait FUCK!" - Fungus_tao
|
Strumpling
Neuronaut
Registered: 10/11/02
Posts: 7,571
Loc: Hyperspace
Last seen: 12 years, 10 months
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1378080 - 03/15/03 09:49 AM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
Ego = very important these days: If you don't have a story to tell, or some way to "sell yourself," its very hard to become independant in this society. I believe the ego assists you in "finding your place" here on Earth.
-------------------- Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me. In addition: SHPONGLE
|
sirreal
devoid
Registered: 01/11/03
Posts: 1,775
Loc: In the borderlands
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
|
|
Quote:
I'm not sure anyone can provide you with an answer that is good enough. Is ego important? I would think yes, it differentiates your self from others, but it is not necessarily good or bad in and of itself.
Life is trying to accomplish something! Is it not? I have taken mushrooms and I have experienced the "unknowing"! What does it all mean? I just want your take on it. Please help me understand! I am not all knowing! I "need" to know what it all means!
-------------------- I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest ----------- I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!
|
AislingGheal
A wave on the ocean
Registered: 02/22/03
Posts: 988
Loc: Northern Ohio
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1378342 - 03/15/03 12:11 PM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
I'm not insensitive to your question, the problem is that anyone who says "This is the ANSWER, this is what LIFE is all about!" is full of shit, or trying to sell you something. To my knowledge no one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what the meaning of life is. To me the great thing about psychedelics is that they show you that there is more to life than what meets the eye. Life is open-ended, mysterious, in it's totality indefinable. I don't think the answer is completely knowable while we are incarnated in matter, yet we are all conscious, individually unique, and we all have a particular road to travel. That in itself leads me to believe that we all have a unique part to play even if the meaning is not apparent. I'm very much like yourself, I'm always looking for meaning and understanding, but I have strong hope that I will eventually know the unknown.
-------------------- "I hate having to pick between the lesser of two evils. But I'm glad Obama was elected. McCain was another war monger. I'd rather deal with our country going into debt than trying to take on afghanistan...oh wait FUCK!" - Fungus_tao
|
GRTUD
INFP
Registered: 01/30/01
Posts: 270
Loc: United States
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1378512 - 03/15/03 01:26 PM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
Your main question deals with "ego", Dr. Freud's term for a division of our "mind" (the term "mind" is a rather loose word which describes how we think. The term seems to include our physical brain as well as the processes of "thought") which buffers two other elements called "ID" and "Superego". Rather than paraphrase what Dr. Freud's three divisions mean to us, I have copied from the web site, Freud's Web Page and I suggest you visit and read. Here is the excerpt on these three divisions as defined by Dr. Freud. Freud understood the mind as constantly in conflict with itself, and understood this conflict as the primary cause of human anxiety and unhappiness. His classic example is the patient Anna O, who displayed a rash of psychological and physiological symptoms: assorted paralyses, hysterical squints, coughs, speech disorders, and others. Under hypnosis, Freud and Josef Breuer, a fellow physician, traced many of these symptoms to memories of a period when she nursed her dying father. One symptom, a nervous cough, they related to a particular event at her father's bedside. Upon hearing dance music drifting from a neighbor's house, she felt an urge to be there, gone from her father's bedside. Immediately, she was struck with guilt and self-reproach. She covered this internal conflict with a nervous cough, and from that day on, coughed reflexively at the sound of rhythmic music. Freud's investigations into internal conflicts such as this led him to an eventual division of the mind into three parts, three conflicting internal tendencies, the well-known id, ego, and super-ego.
This division, it is important to note, is not the separation of the mind into three structures and functions which exist in physical partitions in the brain; they are not even truly structures, but rather separate aspects and elements of the single structure of the mind. Although it is convenient to say, for example, that the id "demands" immediate gratification, the mind has no three distinct little men who engage in a constant fisticuffs of conflict. The personification of these elements merely serves as a convenient guide through a complex psychoanalytic theory. The id, the ego and the superego function in different levels of consciousness: indeed, Freud's theory of the mind hinges upon the ability of impulses or memories to "float" from one level to another. The interaction between the three functions of the mind represents a constant movement of items from one level to another.
Id As the baby emerges from the womb into the reality of life, he wants only to eat, drink, urinate, defecate, be warm, and gain sexual pleasure. These urges are the demands of the id, the most primitive motivational force. In pursuit of these ends, the id demands immediate gratification: it is ruled by the pleasure principle, demanding satisfaction now, regardless of circumstances and possible undesirable effects. If a young child was ruled entirely by his id, he would steal and eat a piece of chocolate from a store regardless of the menacing owner watching above him or even his parents scolding beside him.
The id will not stand for a delay in gratification. For some urges, such as urination, this is easily satisfied. However, if the urge is not immediately discharaged, the id will form a memory of the end of the motivation: the thirsty infant will form an image of the mother's breast. This act of wish-fulfillment satisfies the id's desire for the moment, though obviously it does not reduce the tension of the unfulfilled urge.
Ego The eventual understanding that immediate gratification is usually impossible (and often unwise) comes with the formation of the ego, which is ruled by the reality principle. The ego acts as a go-between in the id's relations with reality, often supressing the id's urges until an appropriate situation arises. This repression of inappropriate desires and urges represents the greatest strain on, and the most important function of, the mind. The ego often utilizes defense mechanisms to achieve and aid this repression. Where the id may have an urge and form a picture which satisfies this urge, the ego engages in a strategy to actually fulfill the urge. The thirsty five-year-old now not only identifies water as the satisfaction of his urge, but forms a plan to obtain water, perhaps by finding a drinking fountain. While the ego is still in the service of the id, it borrows some of its psychic energy in an effort to control the urge until it is feasibly satisfied. The ego's efforts at pragmatic satisfaction of urges eventually builds a great number of skills and memories and becomes aware of itself as an entity. With the formation of the ego, the individual becomes a self, instead of an amalgamation of urges and needs. Superego While the ego may temporarily repress certain urges of the id in fear of punishment, eventually these external sources of punishment are internalized, and the child will not steal the chocolate, even unwatched, because he has taken punishment, right, and wrong into himself. The superego uses guilt and self-reproach as its primary means of enforcement for these rules. But if a person does something which is acceptable to the superego, he experiences pride and self-satisfaction.
The superego is sub-dividable into two parts: conscience and ego ideal. Conscience tells what is right and wrong, and forces the ego to inhibit the id in pursuit of morally acceptable, not pleasurable or even realistic, goals. The ego ideal aims the individual's path of life toward the ideal, perfect goals instilled by society. In the pursuit, the mind attempts to make up for the loss of the perfect life experienced as a baby.
-------------------- "New shit has come to light..."
|
chodamunky
Cheers!
Registered: 02/28/02
Posts: 2,030
Loc: sailing the seas of chees...
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1378639 - 03/15/03 02:55 PM (21 years, 19 days ago) |
|
|
do the bees and birds have egos? hmmm, i doubt it. if ego makes our exsitance purposeful than what the hell are all the OTHER living things on this planet doing? Ego is not essential to life IMO.
|
RebelSteve33
Amateur Mycologist
Registered: 05/28/02
Posts: 3,774
Loc: Arizona
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1380110 - 03/16/03 06:07 AM (21 years, 18 days ago) |
|
|
The ego, as with all things, is neither good nor bad.
In fact, there is no good or bad.
-RebelSteve
-------------------- Namaste.
|
EvilGir
Im the on coming storm
Registered: 11/26/01
Posts: 1,301
Loc: Planet Irk
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
|
|
The ego is bad and what probably causes 99% of all the shit on earth. But I think the ego is diffrent than Identity, the ego is just a thing to help us survive in this physical form.
-------------------- Fighting the man the best way I can.
|
Anonymous
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1380496 - 03/16/03 08:05 AM (21 years, 18 days ago) |
|
|
The ego is good for an individual experiencing life, the ego is bad for humanity in that it drives a lot of terrible things on this earth.
|
entiformatie
EvolutionaryMovements
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 1,043
Loc: miami, florida
Last seen: 15 years, 4 months
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1381118 - 03/16/03 11:37 AM (21 years, 18 days ago) |
|
|
is ego good or bad? it depends. where are you asking from? the ego can be good. the ego can be bad. it depends on what you believe is right, and what you believe is wrong. the only problem, in my opinion, is forcing their right/wrong on you
-------------------- /opinion .sean
|
MAIA
World-BridgerKartikeya (DftS)
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 7,396
Loc: Erra - 20 Tauri - M45 Sta...
Last seen: 2 months, 16 days
|
Re: Good or bad? [Re: sirreal]
#1381290 - 03/16/03 12:33 PM (21 years, 18 days ago) |
|
|
Ego is needed to interact with this reality. Ego itself is neither good or bad, what you do with it can be though.
MAIA
-------------------- Spiritual being, living a human experience ... The Shroomery Mandala Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. Voltaire
|
johnnyfive
Burning withCircles!
Registered: 07/02/02
Posts: 886
Loc: Hell
Last seen: 19 years, 10 months
|
|
true, but unfortuante though
-------------------- And the gameshow host rings the buzzer (brrnnntt) oh and now you get a face full of face!
|
|