Ego

Ego is a mysterious thing.

Where does it stem from?

What is a person with “inflated” ego? How are ego outbursts triggered?

What makes a personality?

I think that a person is the sum of his memories.

But if I don’t have a good memory, if I am forgetful, then does that mean I am not a person? That I do not have a personality, or can never aspire to one, unless I work on my memorizing skills?

Moreover, if I have a terrible memory, but a wonderful learning and adapting mechanism which allows me to distill information from whatever I learn, and also adopt it as a habit and train of thought, isn’t it better than just remembering things?

I think that a person is also what he thinks, how he thinks, what he says, how he says it, what he does and how he does it.

However, if I just jump from one lesson to the next without any judgement, aren’t I kind of like a monkey or a child with a small attention span?

I think that a person is also able, willing and constantly watching his own self.

So, a person is able to hold and retrieve memories, extract useful information from them, combine them with each other, and then stands and acts according to his conclusions of this never-ending process, all while being conscious of this going on inside his head and body.

So, then the ego must be something else.

The ego must be the desires of the person in relation to his personality.

My desire to act as I want is my ego. The way I want to see myself and want others to see me, my reluctance to go against my desires, that is my ego.

My ego blinds me when I compare my thoughts to someone else’s actions. My ego blinds me when someone compares my perceived thoughts to someone else’s actions.

Empathy is the greatest gift to give and receive.

Empathy is the enemy of the ego. To truly try to understand another person’s thoughts, motivations and to see through their actions and into their personality, that must be among the hardest things in life.

I do not know what kind of meditation, psychotherapy or enlightenment one should do to be able to be empathetic all of the time. Also, as in all things in life, I doubt it is that simple.