24 April, 2017

"Ego" is not a dirty word...

The concept of ego - you'll get the irony of this in the end I hope - is something I've been worrying at like a dog with a bone.  This was triggered after I read Ryan Holiday's book, "Ego is the enemy"; the demonization of the ego felt very, very wrong.  There is no argument that an unhealthy ego is dangerous to us and those around us, but what makes a healthy ego?  More importantly, what is it and why do we have one?

Before we have a sense of self (see the "mirror test") we are directly connected to the world and our "machinery" (bodies).  This is an intensely intimate state that is powerful and is highly sought after for peak performance.  Flow, as detailed in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" articulates the attributes of suppressing the "self" for a time.  If the suppression of self is so wonderful, why do we have one?  The positive and negative space of flow explains this:

Flow (self-less)
Consciousness (self-aware)
Focus on present
Focus on the past and future (planning)
Merging of action and awareness
Space between stimulus and response (growth)
Loss of self consciousness
Awareness of social dynamics
Sense of control
Awareness of how little we control
Limited, or no sense of time
Temporal awareness

When we are in flow, or an id state, it looks like we function purely on our procedural memory - reacting to stimulus as it arrives.  If you have a well developed and appropriate procedural memory, this is a fast, tactical system without peer.  This raises three obvious issues;
·         How are sophisticated procedural memories built?
·         How can we operate effectively in a social environment? 
·         If we are "stuck" in the present, how can we plan for the future based on our past?

The way only way to do these is to "separate" from the now.  This is a really hard thing to do, but it gives us two new super powers: awareness of others and the awareness of time.  The hard part is the illusion of separating from our body's "now" machinery.   And this is the paradox of the self; it is both real and an illusion.  It is real in that the self is layered on top of the "now" machinery in the brain, but it is also an illusion because the self pretends that the now isn't.

This explains mysticism's focus on connecting the "self" back to the "now"

When we separate from the now we move into a binary world of "is" and "is not".   The first, and hardest, binary is what is me and what is not.  Binary is the most effective (see information theory) way to store information, but it relies on context or "categories".   And this is where the fun begins because each category is arbitrary.  And then we use these categories to build models - some call them dreams - of how the world works (I'll talk about this more another time).

A danger in the early transition period from now to self is grandiosity: "I am responsible for all outcomes".  This means when bad things happen, we believe we are to blame and this creates toxic models in our "self". 

At a fundamental level, we suffer from binary tension because we know that these binary categories are approximations and yet we act on them as if they were "true".   Now we can argue that the ego is really the self, but for the purposes of this discussion let's restrict it to its function as an emotional buffer system; normalizing our highs and lows.  The normalization of our emotional response is critical for two reasons; first we use the body's survival machinery and second, we drop back into procedural memory ("now") when we get overwhelmed or "flooded".

We use our foundational fight, flight and freeze system when we project ourselves in time and relationships.  This explains why we feel "like we could die" when we suffer a faux pas.  It is also why when we look into the future, we can become very distressed as all possibilities can feel "real".   This can create some very strange patterns of behaviour!

Protecting ourselves from getting into an overwhelmed state is critical function of our ego; we often make tactically sound decisions that are strategically disastrous.  The way we normalize or regulate our emotional state is equally vital as the wrong strategy may result in a spiral of doom.  We have a lot of lore about this from "desire is suffering" to the "seven deadly" sins.

In a funny way, I think Scott Adams encapsulates the heart of "desire is suffering" beautifully,
"…you will spend every moment until you reach the goal— if you reach it at all— feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary. That feeling wears on you. In time, it becomes heavy and uncomfortable. It might even drive you out of the game.",
Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 32). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And 
"If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure."
Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 32). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
 My experience of goals, outside "day-tight" compartments, is that they are an emotionally ineffective way of making progress.  Systems, on the other hand help us to relax in our journey,
"A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal."
Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
 The seven deadly sins speak to what is (un)healthy, individually and in groups, to strive for.  As Covey points out,
"It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective."
Covey, Stephen R.. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (25th Anniversary Edition) (Kindle Locations 1921-1923). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.
 There are really three categories in the seven deadly sins;
·         Don't let the overwhelm (fight, flight & freeze) states rule you:  Sloth & Wrath
·         Don’t over or underestimate yourself or others: Envy and Pride
·         Don't set goals for (excessively) more than you need: Lust, Gluttony and Greed.

The negative space view of the sins guides us to what we should be aiming for:
·         Exercise within our window of tolerance: Patience & Diligence
·         Be honest with yourself, no matter how frightening it is: Humility & Kindness
·         Use systems and grow at a healthy rate: Temperance, Generosity & Chastity.

Finally, our ego is like a muscle,
"It is not enough to know how to do it; one must do it, consistently, in the same way as athletes or musicians who must keep practicing what they know in theory."
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (p. 21). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
 What I think Ryan was talking about in his book "the ego is the enemy" is when we build broken models to comfort ourselves.  The ego isn't the problem nor are the models - it is that the models are misaligned, and we believe them real.

I'll finish with two quotes I really like about ego,
"I also recommend exercising your ego the way you’d exercise any other muscle. Try putting yourself in situations that will surely embarrass you if things go wrong, or maybe even if they don’t."
Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 130). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
And
"'is-not', is not, 'not-is'"
The Great Time Machine Hoax by Kieth Laumer, 1964



No comments: