Comment by rabidrat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rabidrat | Hacker News Reader

Overall this article has some really good advice. But I have come to realize that a violent stance--"fighting" to "kill" a "toxic ego"--reinforces a separate, negative part of yourself, and it becomes stronger, subtler, and can eventually become another kind of ego on its own. Ego is all about division and separation, and to truly diminish its hold, we have to take another approach: to embrace it (but not to indulge it), to understand it, to invite it to tea.

In today's egotistic world, we need to cultivate a healthy ego, so that we don't sacrifice ourselves to unworthy causes. Ego is an important psychological tool that, when wielded wisely (with intention and awareness, as the article points out), can be very powerful and positive. We just need to make sure that we're in the driver's seat and that we don't let it take over. And especially that we don't come to believe that our collection of ideas about ourselves IS ourselves; as long as we remember that it's just a game--a mask, or a shield that can be dropped at a moment's notice--then we'll be okay.

Completely agree. The problem with the "kill" mentality is that it doesn't encourage self-awareness of the ego, the "silent observer" as Eckhart Tolle calls it.

This year for whatever reason I keep seeing the concept of "integration" in everything, and have also become interested in what feels like the opposite -- division and separation -- so when I read "Ego is all about division and separation", it really piqued my curiosity. Could you elaborate on that?

You can't have a "self" without reference to an "other". When you say to yourself "I am a good programmer", it must be by comparison to all the other not-good programmers.

There is a subtle but very important difference between discernment (taste) and judgment (comparison). Discernment is about the integrated relationship/system or the impersonal action/outcome, rather than the actor/person/self. It is not just a semantic coincidence that framing things in "I" language tends strongly towards judgment.

[I've reflected a lot on this topic but I'm not very good at expressing my understanding. Hopefully the above is helpful for what you were asking.]

It doesn't have to be a zero sum comparison. One can be "good" at something so long as the goals are met.

It doesn't have to be, and yet, when we do the comparison, it usually is. Why is that?

Try explaining anything without comparing it to something else.

Looking at the physical world it seems what "I" am is the integration of the cells/components of my body with the rest of universe to create a point of experience. That point of experience only exists with the integration of everything, and "I" is a component of that which would not exist otherwise. Ego ignores this and tells us we are separate from the whole process and often that we are above it, but the concept of my independent self may be an abstraction that helps my mind cope with survival in the natural world

exactly. The ego serves a purpose. It has a lot to teach us about how we perceive ourselves, others and reality. Not only can you not "kill" it (people who claim to have "transcended" the ego still eat food :p ), but trying to will just result in the flip side of the same coin. The solution is integration, not destruction. As Buddhism says, the answer lies in "the middle way".

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