On Ego and Roles (Thoughts)

When I am working and ask if I can help and the customer responds automatically with "No, I'm fine." When really what they want is for someone to help them find the thing they are looking for but they don't want anyone to think that they are helpless, weak, or can't find it on their own. Inevitably, within a few seconds, they raise my attention with, "Actually, where is the so and so?" 

Sometimes I smile when I filled with a sense of ego. When I accomplish something difficult or figure something out that is meaningful, or when someone says that I did a good job. I am consumed by a sense of pride and confidence. I smile and look inward to congratulate myself. "What a good job I have done!" "They like me!" Then I am struck by another thought and I smile to myself and I accept my pride and release the feeling of ego and move on with life. If I allow myself to live in the past accomplishments I will have a harder time recognizing the current experience and become distracted from those around me who rely on my judgment and expertise. If I forget those around me in pursuit of prolonging my sense of self-worth then I forget to treat people as I would prefer to be treated. I prefer to those around me to acknowledge my existence and be present around me. I want to be a part of their world, not a ghost adjacent. 

My longing to be perfect is a reflection of my dysfunctional ego. An ego that will not be satisfied with anything less than perfection creates an endless cycle of failure. Instead of being satisfied with improvement with an upward trajectory, an inflated ego demands a level of expertise that is only afforded to those that are practiced, educated, and experienced, and only to varying degrees regardless of said experience. 

I get nervous before I stream myself live, offer my opinions to superiors, or try to impress loved ones. I want to control the perception of others in a way that makes me think that they think that I am awesome. That I am wise, courageous, strong, funny, healthy, sexy, and all other archetypes of awesomeness. When I am nervous I forget to be in the moment and I forget to focus on the task at hand. In the back of my mind, I am imagining those that are watching me and attempting to will them into seeing me in a positive light. 

This is illogical for many reasons. Firstly, I am incapable of accurately predicting the thoughts of others. Secondly, I have no control over and shouldn't require control over the thoughts of others. Thirdly, I have to accept that not all people will like me, hate me, love me, think about me, forget me, know me and in fact, most people will never think about me at all. Even those who have met me will rarely think of me twice. And my best friends, family members, and lovers will only think of me occasionally and with only a small fragment of an accurate impression of myself. 

My ego allows me to spite others for not caring enough about me. When I choose not to call a friend and use the excuse that they haven't called me in "who knows how long" or when I say to myself, "if they wanted to talk to me they would call me." My ego tells me that in order to be my friend you have to put in the same amount of effort I put in so when my friends don't put in the effort it is simply a reflection of my effort. My ego tells me that if I text them first then I am the weak one. 

My ego makes me want to show how amazing I am by working harder than anyone else, even though I am lazier than I could be, waste plenty of time, and only marginally work toward bettering myself. When I judge others as being lazy because they don't answer a phone I don't want to answer. When I look around at everyone and think "these lazy fucks!".    

I am full of shit. 

Any desire that is born simply for the need to impress others is shallow and elusive. To understand what others want one would have to constantly be probing and questioning those around them to gain insight into what might impress others. To make your parents proud you have to constantly be assessing their pride in your deeds, or lack of deeds. Maybe your parents are elusive as well. They disguise their pride and your ego becomes lost and confused. 

Roles: 

The ego is an expression of the collective idealism you create around the perception of yourself. The ideal self is postulated within the mind and over time it evolves. Whenever you contemplate yourself as being in alignment with your perceived ideal self your ego is satisfied. 

Be wary of the ideal self as this is generated with others in mind. We generate and develop our conception of ourselves by comparing ourselves to those around us. We impersonate, mimic, and react to the world and we are shaped by its actions. We are told who we are by witnessing the world. We know we are human because other humans look the same and identify as humans. Are parents and siblings become role models and we become like them. Adapting and surviving. But we are not them and so we take different paths and soon we learn of the paths of many others. Through stories, we learn about the lives of others and we incorporate those archetypes into our bank of lives to emulate. "I like that person. I don't like that person." We identify allies and enemies by taking sides in stories and justifying actions. We place ourselves into the story and take on the roles of its characters. We imagine living the lives of these characters and 

These stories are ancient but in the age of information, the stories are overwhelming. From before we are alive we are inflicted with stories. Many of them that are purposely unrealistic in a way that clouds the mind with counterfactuals and contrivances. (This has been an attempt to get the word contrivances into a sentence.)

We can't trust the news to tell us what is really going on. 

Politicians attempt to convince others that they are the hero in a virtue story. A story about how people should act. A story about how people should try to help others. A story about service and chastity. A story about trust and courage. These are just stories. They are not real. Politicians are professional administrators with jobs related to spending the public's money. They determine their own salaries, bonuses, and benefits. 

There are no roles. Your life is not a story. You are an ape on Earth, on your way to death while witnessing the deaths of those around you. You didn't choose to be born and you will most likely remain ignorant to anything deeply true in the universe. You will only tenuously grasp reality and mostly fumble along getting by on sheer momentum, determination, and luck.  

Luck is another word for ignorance. Luck is not knowing the causal link from an outcome to its salient cause. Luck is seeing a result without seeing the effort put into it. It is assigning positive or negative value based on its relative benefit to the individual. 

Pretending Entertainment

I used to work for a large video game store. One where you might Stop to buy Games. I mostly sold bullshit. Grown men coming up and saying "I wanna pretend I'm driving a car. Is there a game for that?" Pretending and having imaginary friends was once relegated to children but now, it seems, that children do not grow up. Looking for any excuse to feel accomplishment in virtual worlds to distract from the reality of a failure to accomplish personal goals is the purview of men who've been neglected by their parents and devalued by society. Getting self-esteem from simulated successes creates a fog of delusion that, if cleared away, reveals an inflated ego ready to burst. 

Finding camaraderie in a chat box and slaying imaginary enemies feels good but when the electricity turns off and the mind is still what is left?

I am not immune to such imaginings but I am skeptical of my attachment to the medium. As I have aged I find myself getting less and less fulfillment out of video games. At times in my life I would spend 2-4 hours a day, 7 days a week immersed in sculpting the imaginary life of a digital avatar but lately, I find that this pursuit has much less appeal. While, even now, I spend some time each week playing Dark Souls 3 or some other engrossing game, it is significantly less than in the past.  I'm finding now that if I spend more then a few hours a week playing a game I feel guilty.

I do watch television a lot but there seems to be a disconnect between an interactive medium and the one-sided nature of non-interactive art forms such as film and TV. When you are a passive observer it is harder to get wrapped up in the accomplishments of others. These forms rely on the empathy of the viewer to relate with the emotion on the screen where video games place you in an active role giving you a sense of control and the ability to manipulate outcomes and solve problems.

As much as I feel that video games can be a huge distraction, it is certainly not the worst activity and I shouldn't give myself too hard of a time about something that I get enjoyment out of and a sense of identity to some degree. Being a "gamer" isn't a bad thing but for some reason, I am not committed to the "cause", whatever that means. With such an easy life and so much abundant wealth, it is no wonder that so many are able to have such enticing and satisfying experiences in the safety of their own homes. No longer does one need to venture out into the world for glory and heroics. They can do it from their couch.

Photo Journal 6/30/2018

Blue Lake Regional Park, Oregon

Shot with Canon 80D with 50mm 1.4, Kenko Extension Tubes,

70-200mm 2.8 and 14-24mm 2.8 Lenses

Edited with PhotoScape X Pro (free version)

Click to Enlarge

Photo Journal 6/29/2018

Blue Lake Regional Park, Oregon

No Editing, Shot with Canon 80D with 50mm 1.4, Kenko Extension Tubes,

70-200mm 2.8 and 14-24mm 2.8 Lenses

Click to Enlarge

Exercise Diary

As of 7/17/17

Average per week totals: (Rounded down)
300 Crunches
120 Push-ups
40 Pull-ups
30 Kettle Bell Curls
30 Kettle Bell Over Head Curls (Triceps)
30 Kettle Bell Squat to Over Head Lift
30 Kettle Bell Row Movement (Shoulders)

Other activities:
Punching Bag
Slack Line
Hiking
Walking
Jogging
Bicycling

Weight this morning: 142

Photo Journal 5/31/2018

Hanging in the Yard

Canon with 70 - 200mm 

Click to Enlarge

On Getting Older and Living Up To Values

Something no one told me about when I was growing up was that as you get older you start to identify and develop your values. Then, as you are doing this, you also start to look at yourself and if you are critical you realize that developing your values is complicated and that living up to your own values is very difficult. So difficult that you find that you are forever in a loop of evaluating your actions, determining how shitty you are compared to the way you want to be. Then you either try to adjust your value system to justify your actions or you demean yourself for being too weak to live up to your own values.

Then you realize that your self-esteem is directly related to your ability to live up to your own values which means that it is now your responsibility to develop your own self-esteem. Now that you can't blame others (your parents) for how you feel about yourself you have to look at your own actions and begin to do the things that will make you feel that you are living up to your own values. This requires taking a hard look at the morals and virtues that you determine to have value and will make you the kind of "hero of your own story," as Joe Rogan might put it.

So, you look at your health, because you want to be the kind of person that looks like they care about themselves and maybe even the kind of person that is attractive to others. You start to exercise and eat better food and you find that in a few months you are actually doing a thing that makes you less depressed, less resentful and you stop thinking so much about the past and start looking at the future as something that might matter and that you might matter but then you look at your job. Your job is shit and working for those corporate robots makes you feel like you are wasting your life and contributing nothing to the world.

You decide to write more, make Youtube videos, and learn new skills. You take up hobbies and spend time maintaining friendships with people because you want to be the kind of person that has deep relationships with people you respect. Then you decide to have hard conversations with your parents which only goes to prove that they don't know more than you and will never provide the kind of leadership and guidance that you needed and still need so you come to realize that only you are in charge of yourself and that's it and that you are kind of alone. This puts all the responsibility on yourself to make your life the best it can be but since that is subjective and complicated you just continue to work and do things that increase your self-esteem by convincing yourself that you are capable of accomplishing difficult and somewhat meaningful things because you want to be the kind of person who others look at and see what you have done difficult and meaningful things.

All the while a nagging doubt, pessimism, and hauntingly nihilistic voice speaks up saying "you're just going to die in the end, it doesn't matter and you are worthless". Then you do as many pushups you can do or you smoke a cigarette or you get a little drunk but in the back of your negative mind you still want to live up to your values and you know that if you feel like shit it is your fault. There are things you can do to not feel like a shitty person so if you feel like shit it is because you want to feel like shit and you would only want to feel like shit if you think that is what you are but you don't think that. Someone else does. Someone in your life made you feel that deep down you are a worthless piece of shit and although it haunts you you know that it's not true.

Because you want to be the kind of person who doesn't believe the negativity implied by a childhood of neglect and abuse. You want to be the kind of person who overcomes negativity and does something worthwhile in the world even if you only accomplish convincing yourself that you are worthwhile. So you keep learning new skills, doing things that are difficult like taking responsibility, working and creating value in the world. You try to live up to the virtues you hold paramount. You try to live how you would want everyone else to live. You want to have integrity, bravery, and strength. You want to be unrelentingly honest with yourself and practically honest with others. You want to be wise and patient. You want to be humble but confident. You want to be the kind of person that others look to for guidance and leadership. You want to be better than your parents. Better than others. Better than yourself.

Sometimes you get confused and forget who you want to be and you are just yourself. At those times you just act and others get to see the true you and you get to forget yourself and who you want to be. You stop criticizing and stop thinking and stop pretending. You stop faking it and just make it. You just are. And then you realize you just told someone to stop being a pussy ass little bitch and you go back to realizing that you don't know shit and your kind-of a terrible person.

I think as I get older the time it takes to get over mistakes grows shorter and the total number and severity of the mistakes tend to go down with a few monumental exceptions.

I hope that I pick the right values and I hope I am strong enough to live up to them.

Photo Journal 5/23/2018

Powell Butte, Oregon

No Editing, Canon with 14-24mm and Kenko Extension Tubes

Click to Enlarge