The Ego in the Mirror | Ego #1
What do we really mean by the ego and what purpose does it serve?
I started this article with the intention of exploring the idea of egolessness which is an important characteristic of the concept of mastery as described by George Leonard in his 1992 book Mastery. Egoless mastery is the learning and development of abilities for their own sake, rather than for the accrual of status, success, power or fame which might traditionally be seen as the products of mastery. It strips away the pretensions of elitism or dominance that may sometimes be negatively associated with mastery and focuses on the inherent beauty and value in the process of whatever it is that is being mastered.
But before thinking about egolessness, let’s get to the root of what we mean by ego as there are a variety of interpretations and uses of the term. A subsequent article will explore the idea of egolessness as a confident and humble approach to mastery.
The ego as a human construct
First of all let’s be clear that the idea of the ego is a human construct, a model of the self. The ego is intangible, an idea in your mind of who you are. It can’t be touched or directly observed, it appears to be an emergent phenomenon of the human mind, aspects of which, just like our apprehension of consciousness, still remain an elusive mystery to us.
The ego, despite its intangibility, is however the thing we feel like we know the best. It’s the thing we think about the most, some of us more than others. It’s the thing that drives us to act in certain ways, but also the thing that trips us up, and limits us as we get in the way of ourselves. For the ego is us. You are your ego, I am my ego. But has my ego tricked me into thinking it is me? What am I if I am not my ego? What would be left if I were truly egoless?
The ego and our ideas of egolessness will be addressed here as a philosophical question, unscientific speculation rather than a factual appraisal of the self. I hope I can adopt an egoless sense of curiosity about the subject, rather than getting my own ego tangled up in it. But that’s not easy, because as I’m writing this I’m thinking about how people will react to it. What will they think of me? Who am I to be asserting myself as an authority on this topic? Am I some kind of egotist?
Why I’m thinking about the ego and egolessness
The reason I want to spend a little time exploring the concept of the ego is that while working on fleshing my proposed ASPIRE Mastery Coaching Model, and focusing on the ‘I’ section for our Internals, our Inner World and sense of Identity, I found that I was flippantly referring to this thing called the ego and realised that different people would have different interpretations to the term which could cause confusion. The context in which words are used often influences their meaning, and in the case of the word ‘ego’, I sense that there might be plenty of room for misinterpretation.
Etymology:
From an etymological perspective, the word ‘ego’ is of Latin origin, meaning “I”. Ego seemed to become associated with psychological and philosophical perspectives on the self after it was chosen by Sigmund Freud’s translator as an interpretation of his use of the German ‘ich’.
Freud portrayed the role of the ego as one of mediating between our instinctual drives and desires, which he called the id, and our internalised sense of morality, the superego. The conflicting motivations of the id and the superego would cause inner tension and it was the ego’s job to find a pragmatic compromise between the two. Remember that the ego, id, and superego are intangible concepts as part of Freud’s psychoanalytical model, rather than provable entities in their own right.
The development of the ego
According to Piagetian Development Theory, children experience cognitive egocentrism as an early phase of human development, meaning that for the neonate, the self is the centre of reality, where the immediate environment, people’s faces, the mother’s breast, and external noises, are all indistinguishable from the baby’s experience of themselves. They are at one with their environment as far as we can discern. The self and the non-self are the same. There is no personal awareness. The baby is blended with the surrounding world and separateness is something that is learned.
As the baby develops, they discover that they are an individual, separate from their environment and other people. They begin to develop a sense of perspective and imagine how the world may look to someone else. They realise they can cultivate a personality by investigating ways of acting in the world that are acceptable to others, balanced with ways that are frowned upon. The cultivation of ego becomes an experiment, creating a personal signature that makes you stand out, or blend in, according to your preferences. A baby thinks they are the world, but as our egoic sense of self develops, we come to feel as though we are separate from the world, an independent and objective observer. With the atomisation of the modern world and the prevailing sense of isolation and disconnection felt by many, one wonders whether egoic individualism has reached its boundaries.
The ego as a conversation
This week I took part in an Unhurried Conversation, a format hosted by Johnnie Moore which deliberately gives people uninterrupted space in which to compose and verbalise their thoughts on whatever comes to mind in the context of unstructured conversation. It gave me a realisation that the ego is a conversation we have with ourselves. We humans make sense of the world with stories, connecting one thing to another in a way that unfolds as a sensemaking narrative. The ongoing dialogues we have with ourselves reinforce who we are. We are an accumulation of experiences that we weave into stories about ourselves. Just as our conversations in the public sphere reflect the prevailing social constructs and social norms, our egos are constrained by the boundaries of the social context in which they play. Our ego is the result of a negotiation between our inner authentic essence and the outer world we interface with - our ego is socially bounded and limited in scope through ongoing and ever-changing negotiation.
It’s a great feeling when we are open and relaxed in conversation with people we trust, where we don’t feel pressured to conform to others’ expectations and can be our authentic selves. Perhaps we unconsciously suffocate our ego and our potential to create new conversations about ourselves by clinging to the backstories that brought us here. We are prone to becoming more rigid and inflexible with age and would perhaps benefit from being less clingy towards our egos, less ego-bound, and practice becoming detached from our egos so we can take the conversation to new places.
The ego as a story
I wrote a few years ago on how ‘You Are Just a Story’, exploring the idea that we are merely chimps who evolved the ability to tell stories. Humans evolved the ability to express experiences through abstract language, which led to the creation of narratives or stories which shape our lives and cultures. These stories include characters, plot developments, and emotions, and are based on personal histories and imagination. Humans rely on stories to define themselves and their experiences. Without them, their sense of self would be empty.
We carry around our life stories in our head, stories about our interaction with other people we’ve encountered, and we try to understand other people by making up stories about them. We have stories about how we got here, and we project stories of where we might be in the future. We form attachments to these stories, we weave in more and more evidence to support these stories over time. Like a snowball gathering snow as it rolls down a hill, our stories about whence we came and whither we go become more baked in, more compact, and more fixed, the longer we keep retelling them to ourselves and others.
One benefit of seeing our egos as conversations and stories is that we can change the conversation and in doing so we can edit the story and retell it in a more useful way.
Ego States
Conversations follow a rhythm with a dynamic cadence, back and forth from one person to another. So too our ego tends to follow a rhythm as it switches between states, as portrayed in the extreme by Robert Louis Stevenson in his 1886 Gothic novella ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, where Dr Jekyll’s battles with his dark side manifests in the form of his alter ego, My Hyde. The story ensures with the socially sophisticated Dr Jekyll periodically transforming himself into his monstrous alter ego, Mr Hyde, and becomes consumed by his secret dark side which had haunted him since birth.
We can all relate to the different ego states we adopt. Though not quite as extreme as the story of Jekyll and Hyde we can all recognise that we are different people in different contexts. The ego state we adopt in a work setting might be completely different to a relaxed setting with family and friends.
The work of Eric Berne and the post-Freudian psychoanalytic model of Transactional Analysis (TA) he introduced highlighted the way we adopt different ego states in communicating and relating to others. We instinctively move between different ego states he categorised as Parent, Adult and Child and by being aware of our ego state in a given situation we can change the outcomes. The Parent ego state can be nurturing in a positive way, or controlling in a negative way; the Child state can be creative in a positive way or negatively rebellious, especially in response to someone’s controlling parent state; but the more tempered and rational Adult ego state is most likely to yield the best results in our day to day relations with others.
The power of TA is in being able to self-reflect on the ego states involved in a relationship dynamic and deliberately choosing our own ego state for the best outcomes.
Pondering the purpose of the ego
Thinking about the ego leads me to wonder about the evolutionary adaptive advantages it brings and at what stage of evolutionary development the ego begins to form. But this is where I could stray into all kinds of rabbit holes of wondering whether my dog has any sense of self or what is the consciousness of an ant. Is that even the right question, should I not be inquiring into the emergent consciousness of a colony of ants?
Instead of veering off into territory far beyond my understanding, knowing that far greater minds have inconclusively wrestled with theories of consciousness, I will take the liberty that a substack article in a lonely corner of the web permits and muse over some adaptive advantages the ego seems to bring us.
Firstly, we know that humans are incredibly adaptable to the range of environments they have found themselves in. We are particularly innovative when it comes to using objects as tools and developing technology. We are also social animals who through time have cooperated to serve the survival of the tribe. So I’ll have a look at these two features of humanity in relation to the ego.
The ego as technology
The use of tools by human beings has brought evolutionary adaptive advantages to humans, and perhaps the ego is merely another human tool.
Our ego could be explained as a technology. Just as computer applications can be interacted with by exposing an API (Application to Programming Interface) so the human ego acts like an API in facilitating our interactions with the world. The ego is a tool we use to filter the world of experience, to sense what is relevant to the self to avoid being overwhelmed by the full weight of sensory inputs emitted from a chaotic universe. A necessary separation within the universe so that the universe may experience itself through us, to borrow from Carl Sagan.
'The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.' - Carl Sagan
From the perspective of our ego, we can distinguish ourselves from other people, and so we are able to realise the relational relativity of objects in the world. We think better as a collective because our differing egos reveal multiple perspectives of things in the world. We can therefore view everyday problems from multiple angles and find solutions which are more conducive to human adaptability and thriving. Without the separate ego, and the idea of perspective-taking, would we be constrained in our thinking?
Without the ego, we would not have the opportunity to develop empathy and social cooperation skills where individuals combine their diverse skills to form teams that are collectively stronger, more innovative and adaptable, than the sum of the individuals alone.
The ego, tempered with empathy, seems to allow us to optimise individual and collective sensemaking.
Using the ego as a tool
If the ego is a technology, comprised of stories and conversations that we have with ourselves, then can we intentionally improve the way we use the ego to improve our outcomes? Perhaps this is where creative storytelling and exploratory conversations may be useful.
The human mind can imagine the potential of our future selves, who we could become, and what we might achieve. But it has to be believable, we can’t kid ourselves. We can try on different identities to see how they feel, like Mr Benn from the 70s children’s series on the BBC who would visit a fancy dress shop and be launched into a heroic fantasy after trying on an outfit in the changing room.
The use case of the ego as a tool could apply to any situation. One that comes to mind is the idea of identifying as a runner, even if you are just starting out.
It doesn’t matter that you’re overweight, out of shape, and can’t complete your local Parkrun without stopping to walk several times. Simply by taking part and being committed to a regular training routine to slowly improve over time, you have every right to call yourself a runner. You will be welcomed and supported by more seasoned competitors who have nothing but admiration for your efforts. Identifying as a runner, and seeing yourself as someone who can rightfully call themselves a runner is key to acting like one, becoming someone who despite having a preference for sitting on the couch on a rainy day (all runners have resistance to getting out in miserable weather), will keep to your commitments and get out there. If you don’t see yourself as a runner, the excuses will win.
Mastery in any endeavour requires systematic practice, even at times when it feels like no progress is being made. When our progress stalls it could be that we need to continue practising to consolidate all of our previous learnings, creating the necessary foundation for the next growth spurt. Using our ego as a tool, identifying as the kind of person who is persistent in how they surrender themselves to systematic practice, and overcoming internal resistance when the going is tough, will form an identity that will convince you to take actions aligned with the path of mastery.
How the ego gets in our way
We can use the ego as a tool for self-belief, but the needs of the ego can become a source of anxiety when you become too attached to it and it doesn’t get the attention it craves. If you care too much about what other people think of you, you risk becoming a slave to your own vanity.
“Whatever it be, whether art or nature, that has inscribed in us this condition of living by reference to others, it does us much more harm than good. We defraud ourselves out of what is actually useful to us in order to make appearances conform to common opinion. We care less about the real truth of our inner selves than about how we are known to the public.”
Michel de Montaigne
The needs of the ego are a distraction when we identify too closely with an ego based on status or other external measures of success. The ego’s desire for status will present problems on the plateau when our progress is frustratingly slow. The ego will demand progress in times when we should be consolidating our previous learnings. The ego will create forced errors as it pushes for results. The ego will be intolerant of the necessary failures on the plateau.
When we allow our ego to be our master we have no authenticity, we blow with the wind of external expectations and validations. This may bring us results in the short term but our day of reckoning will come when the reflection in the mirror we’ve vainly stared into all our lives stares back at us and asks ‘who the hell are you?’ - perhaps we should pity the egomaniac rather than chastising them?
Even in groups where egolessness is an explicit ideal, such as in spiritual groups, or ‘new age’ settings, the needs of the ego are often evident. People sit in meditation to gain enlightenment but it can become a competition of egos, who is the best meditator, who has gained enlightenment, and who is the most spiritual. The ego is ever-present.
The rise of social media has been like a boost of steroids to egomania, amplifying our ego’s neediness and allowing us to flex across the entire world where nothing of significance happens unless it is digitally captured and broadcast to an audience. The genie is out of the bottle and we’re still wondering what the social impact will be.
Ego, vanity and arrogance:
We often use the word ego to refer to arrogant characteristics and behaviours. We talk of inflated or bloated egos. We talk of egotistical behaviours and when one becomes narcissistically self-obsessed we’ll refer to them as an egomaniac. When multiple inflated egos meet we see a clash of egos.
Such characters are described as conceited, self-important, and vain. Their boastful demeanour is driven by a need for power and status. It’s not limited to traditional ideas of dominance, such as chest-thumping power displays and the accumulation of material wealth, but we also see intellectual or competency-based egoism or even the virtue-obsessed do-gooder who is constantly seeking attention and appreciation for their good deeds.
“It’s possible that one of the reasons you got on the path of mastery was to look good. But to learn something new of any significance, you have to be willing to look foolish” - George Leonard.
The scientific study of heuristics and cognitive bias reveals our natural human inclinations to boost and protect our egos:
Self-Serving Bias for example reveals a tendency to attribute positive outcomes to our own abilities and negative outcomes to external factors beyond our control. This bias can have implications for the ego because it can cause individuals to have an inflated sense of self-worth and to take credit for successes that may not be entirely due to their own efforts.
The Illusory Superiority bias is the tendency to overestimate one's own abilities or qualities relative to others. This bias can have implications for the ego because it can cause individuals to have an unrealistic sense of superiority, which can lead to arrogance and a lack of humility. This can ultimately hinder personal growth and lead to negative social consequences, such as conflicts with others.
Complacency sets in when people with big egos congratulate themselves for their success in life. Those who think they are already successful become complacent, they ‘rest on their laurels’, and therefore limit their future development.
The egotist doesn’t have a strong ego, it is frail and needs defending.
Delicate and needy egos:
Egos can be built up, but they are easily shattered. Frail egos are easily dented or bruised. We talk of massaging and flattering people’s egos as if they are in constant need of reassurance. We protect the ego as it needs defending under the slightest threat, and this can develop into a clinginess or attachment. Often the most outwardly superior egos are the frailest, they belong to people whose egos won’t let them show any vulnerabilities, people who can’t tolerate the necessary mistakes and human imperfections on a path of mastery.
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself.”
Epictetus
Success, material wealth, and flattering compliments feed our egos, but our ego is ever hungry for more and we can become consumed by our ego, a devouring monster that eats itself.
When our ego comes into contact with other people’s egos they indulge in social comparison and will fight for pecking order. Comparing egos is the source of envy, jealousy, anger, outrage and the manipulation of others. Frail egos will fight harder and put you down, people with confident egos will build you up. A frail ego will react in the moment. Someone with a strong enough ego to be ‘egoless’ will be more balanced and considered with their responses.
Egolessness:
So far I’ve explored the concept of the ego, pondered on its purpose, and looked into how we can wield the power of the ego as a tool, as well as the traps we fall into when we give the ego too much power.
I’ve hinted too at the idea of how frail egos are prone to arrogance, and how egolessness reflects confidence - an important distinction.
In a follow-up article, I will delve further into the idea of egolessness - being self-aware and objective in our relationship with our ego so that we may humbly and confidently follow a path of mastery.