Ego & Identity

As mentioned in "Let's get clinical" and "for the 100th time", I've noticed a penchant for many people to believe in limiting systems.

Unfortunately, I forget on occasions the same very principles that I espouse.

A recent example was that of a lovely woman who professed to be an astrololger. Instead of my inviting her to consider some examples of  dynamic and fluid potentials available to her, I joked about her beliefs in a condescending manner. Not good.

When chatting with a friend recently we discovered that we had (independently) come to a similar place in our lives -- a wonderfully light, free and peaceful place.

We found that we each had arrived at this place by doing something exceedingly simple -- we had finally "let go" blaming others, or blaming "out there" or "suffering" blame from others.

I often hear of, or run across people who espouse all sorts of ... well, quite frankly, incoherent, silly ideas and beliefs.

For example, in response to one forum, I received the comment that "there is no right answer or absolute."

Well, let's consider that ... no absolute? Absolutely no commonality, at all?

That begs the question .. if there's no underlying commonality, no absolute common ground to existence, what then enables it and us to all interact? What's the 'connective tissue' that enables that interactivity? What's the ground upon which, and by which, separate things move and connect?

So, here's a response I crafted that kiboshes a few misunderstandings.

Enjoy.

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Consider some "stuff" of which the entirety of existence is composed. Not physical, not even necessarily spiritual. Let's just call it "stuff".

Now, this 'stuff' is, by definition, literally everywhere, in everything, everyone one, every thought, God, Evil ... it's literally everywhere. In fact there is no place it is not. Given its ubiquity, we can say it is 'one-stuff'.

If we want to believe that some spiritual beings or others are not composed of this one-stuff, we need ask of what they are made. Whatever that is, it will ultimately need to be made of said 'one-stuff' in that said one-stuff is the ground stuff of all existence. no exceptions.

Now it gets interesting.

I've just listened to an audio (podcast) of some spiritual, self-development school, who talk about all the wonderful things and experiences to be had when we get to 'transcend'.

Transcending is the way forward, it seems.

Uhm, what exactly is it that we are supposed to transcend?

Presumably it is our wrong-headed egos or some such.

Only question is, does it make sense to 'transcend' anything?

Put it this way, when a young child is growing, and learning, at some point we allow them out of their baby cot (playpen). Does it make sense to say that the baby has 'transcended' the cot?

When writing Be and Become during the latter half of the 90's, the various revisions of the manuscript1 included chapter (Nine) titled as "Men are particles, women are waves".

However, prior to publication I had the thought (contrary to my better instincts) that the chapter would best be titled differently, to what is now "Material men, wonderful women". It was, I thought, less likely to be dismissed as 'stereotyping' people, even though I felt at ease with the "Men are particles ..." title.  "Men are particles, women are waves" quite adroitly and succinctly expresses the inherent dynamics of life towards individualism, and collectivism -- men and male animals do (as a general rule!) bias themselves towards the hard, physical, individualistic side to life (characteristic of particles). Women do bias themselves towards the soft, interconnective, cooperative, relationship side to life (characteristic of waves and fields).

I've come to observe a number of people in my life who complain a great deal.

Their circumstances may change, and the specifics of the complaints, but overall, they complain to about the same degree on a regular basis.

It appears to me that they've been habituated to complain - even when all is well they'll use their creative abilities to find things to complain about.

They have what I've come to realise is a particular SOB or 'State of Being' that involves a degree of anxiety, powerlessness, blame and (what we Australians call) whinging.

Occasionally I get involved in deep discussion about life, the universe and whatever.

What I've come to recognise is that those who seek to control conversations can do so in very subtle ways.1

And one of the most devious ways is to assert that someone is stuck in their ego, as was levelled at me recently during a vigorous discussion with a friend.

What does being stuck in one's ego actually mean? When can we ever speak, live, and work without an ego?

As explained on the About page, my focus as The Belief Doctor^®1 is to work with people and provide examples and information that reveals the power and productive benefits gained from combining "masculine" and "feminine" energies in one coherent approach to life, in all areas of life. This combination – of effectively combining both 'head' with 'heart' to enable intimate, powerful and rewarding personal, business and social relationships – is recognised by leading thinkers as being crucial to ease, wellbeing, intimacy, creativity, productivity, innovation, health, wealth, fulfillment and happiness.

Last night while enjoying a wonderful dinner I had the pleasure of engaging conversation with a number of intelligent men on matters philosophical.

It became evident that some held beliefs that were rooted in the ideal of perfection: the age-old belief that when we get 'over there' or perhaps 'up there' everything will be 'perfect' (at which time, we'll have 'transcended' the troubling, fault-ridden ego).