The
most devastating turn of events happens nearly the same way for almost
everyone. You are looking in a mirror, marveling at the child on the
other side of
the glass, when your parent says, “That’s you.”
At
first it makes no sense, because they are pointing at the toddler in
the mirror, not at you. And that familiar toddler, the occasional friend
of yours… where
is he when you’re not in front of the mirror? He never seems to make an
appearance anywhere else.
Your parents are quite stubborn about calling him “you,” even though that’s
your nickname, and eventually you do take their word for it.
Above all else you’ve already learned that your parents know better than
you, and you gradually digest this unlikely-sounding claim like any
other.
As you get older, you will associate more and more worldly things with
you. Your clothes. Your toys. Your friends. Your room. Your
house. A bit of you seems to be invested everywhere. There is a lot to
worry about, because your fate seems to depend, at least a little, on
the fate of each of these objects too.
But
it gets heavier. Along with those, you begin to identify with
intangible things which also carry this special, extra-sensitive status.
Your turn. Your idea. Your way. Your problem. Your fault.
By
this time, you will have no doubts whatsoever that the image in the
mirror is you. Now the collection of thoughts and objects with that
special status has
a clear appearance and a compelling storyline, and you become
hopelessly preoccupied with tending to it.
That
figure in the mirror, disappointingly tiny compared to the 360-degree
world you were preoccupied with before, becomes the most important part
of the scenery
to deal with. You begin to associate your history and your traits with
it: how smart it is, what it is good at and bad at, what it deserves,
what it fears, what it hopes for, where it has been and where it is
going.
It’s all you really have. God forbid anything will happen to it.
By
this time you are completely convinced that this image and its story
comprise the entirety of who you are. There is nothing outside of it.
Steering the story
And ever after, anything that happens to that image, and the story that goes with it, is happening to
you. When the story goes how you want, the image gains something.
It looks better. When it disappoints, the image loses something, and
you don’t like it as much.
Because
this face and this story allegedly comprise the entirety of who you
are, the importance of steering this storyline and its vulnerable little
hero grips
you with the most dire seriousness.
Even
though most of what happens to it is beyond your control, you find it
absolutely imperative that the image and its story become something you
like. At this,
you mustn’t fail.
But
the story always seems to be deviating from its ideal path, and it will
always feel like something is wrong, or at least in danger of going
wrong. Something
that is supposed to happen hasn’t happened yet, or something has
happened that wasn’t supposed to.
For
all our skill in manipulating the story, deep down we know
circumstances could crush us at any time. But we do our best to steer it
towards a storyline we
can accept. We feel a constant need to make adjustments, to secure a
future that will fulfill this most important of all needs.
This is the game we learn to play, and it’s very, very hard to win.
You are never what you think you are
The face in the mirror, and the haphazard story we associate with it, is the ego.
In other words,
the ego is what you think you are.
The
ego is often defined as “a false sense of self,” but I think that’s
misleading. It implies that there is an accurate way of thinking of who
you are, and
an inaccurate way. Bad self-esteem and good self-esteem. But who’s to
say if your image is right or not? Self-esteem is ego, whether your
self-thoughts comfort you or horrify you.
How
could our thoughts even possibly pin down who we are? How could our
notoriously fickle, free-associating monkey minds ever come up with an
meaningful estimation
of what the combination our jobs, faces, body-types, relationships,
capabilities, experiences, fears and desires actually mean? All that
stuff is the content of your life; it’s the style, the flavor, but do
all those details really add up to a person?
Of
course not, because what we think of ourselves is constantly changing,
not just day to day, but moment to moment, and mood to mood. At
different times, I
have thought of myself as anything from an insufferable loser, to a
freaking genius, to a guy who can never quite get his shit together, to a
guy who’s never had a serious problem in his life. What I think I am is
so fickle and so dependent on moods and circumstances
that it can’t possibly be right — ever!
The
ego is always just a big, seething grab-bag of thoughts that could be
different at any time. But usually we don’t recognize that. Generally,
in the colloquial
way we talk about people, as in you and me, we’re referring to our egos
— our acquired identities, based on the forms in our life.
That
is to say, it’s completely normal in our society to confuse your ego
for yourself. It has never even occurred to most people that they are
not what they
think they are.
This
has enormous implications for the quality of our lives and our
societies, too enormous to cover in the scope of this article. For now,
suffice it to say
that the worst of human behavior stems from this brutal mistake.
Clearly you can’t be your thoughts. After all, who would you be when you’re not thinking?
So what are you then? What’s left over? You know you’re not who you think you are, or at least
who you think you are is only an undependable, highly circumstantial part of the whole story.
Remember,
we didn’t have an ego when we were born. We accumulated it through
making associations. So who — what– was doing that thinking and
perceiving, before
it was even aware of itself?
If you recall:
You
are aware of all these shapes and sounds and feelings, but you aren’t
perceiving them as happening to you or to anyone else. You are only
aware that
they are happening.
How
do we get back there? Is it possible, after all the self-ascribing
opinions we’ve taken on over the years? We need a way to see clearly
what we were before
the ego came along and said “Hey, I’m you.”
We can’t untangle this mess of thoughts with more thinking any better than we could clean a dirty floor with more dirt.
That’s where
Stachys Ross’ work becomes particularly useful. Stay tuned.
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