There is little point in discussing how each of us should change since everyone is shaped by one’s immediate environment—family, school, and society. If, however, we begin to act as if we are playing a fun game called “altruism,” it will become the most engaging game we have ever played, a life-changing one. It will be so much fun that we will gladly dedicate all our free time to building a good environment, founded on mutual responsibility. Our egos will gladly join the game because all the ego cares about is feeling good.
Indeed, it is easy to change when motivated by each other’s support. We need only agree to mutual responsibility. This is our “red carpet” to the future we all desire, a life of balance, peace, prosperity, and security. Responsibility is an ability to choose how we respond to our egoism, and at this stage in our individual and collective evolution, we are required to start using it to serve our common interest.
A question may arise: If it is so easy, why haven’t we done this before? The truth is that our egoism has been evolving, and until now, we couldn’t recognize its magnitude and how far it is willing to push us in pursuit of pleasure. We convinced ourselves that the ego helps us advance through competition and winning, and that it drives progress, both personal and collective. We did not regard it as destructive.
Yet, look at how we’ve grown apart. We are separated, alienated, and engrossed in self-entitlement. We never dreamed that this would lead us to the devastating destruction that we are witnessing today. Only now are we beginning to realize the treacherous path we have been treading, the perilous condition we are in. Therefore, now is the time to understand that the only way to reform ourselves is to build a new society.
Like an incubator or a greenhouse, this mutually responsible society can make us able and willing to rise above personal interests for the sake of common good. And the amazing part about it is that with everybody’s support and participation, even our egos will get their pleasures since society will value the unique input of each and everyone of us, for our unique contributions are both crucial and desired.
Imagine how incredible our future will be if all of humanity begins to apply egoism in positive, benevolent ways, so when a person connects with others, he or she will feel affinity and affection toward them, as if we are all family, or a single organism. We will be able to feel and understand every person and the entire world.
Once we begin this process, we will be able to experience humanity within us. We will realize that Nature has brought us to this remarkable stage in our evolution in order for us to feel that we are an integrated collective made of all and every one. When we can feel it, we will be able to utilize the main driving force of our lives correctly—our egoism, which distinguishes us from and lifts us above the animal level. Using it constructively, we will transform ourselves and rise above the human level in which we were born, and into the humane level of existence.
In the pictures: Dr. Patch Adams, MD
Valid point, Eugene. However, we cannot dis-identify with the ego since it is the essence, the core of our being. Ego is a desire to receive pleasure, and no human can ignore or live without its constant nagging :). If we stopped wishing enjoyment, we would fall into apathy and depression, which eventually would lead to demise.
True, religions are also based on egoistic notions; some of them threaten the ego, some suppress it, others instruct to try getting rid of it, and none of them succeed. For instance, living a “naked” life in meditation under a tree is just as egoistic as living in Vatican’s luxurious apartments since they are two extremes of the same and both separate a person from the society, which is essential to our existence. Without it, the ego turns one in a character similar to the infamous LOTR’s Golem. Remarkable entity though it is – half yogi, half pope 🙂 internally of course :). As to consciousness, there is such a thing as a conscious choice, but the ego rules it as well, until the pain of its reign burns a hole in one’s heart and mind, and one has to face the depth of one’s own lowness and servitude to the “master”, same ole ego :). Desire governs man, and the mind services the desire. To destroy desire is to perish; but to live consciously requires the proper environment, where everyone does everything in full awareness of the root and the fruit of one’s thought, need, desire and action. It can be achieved of course… by way of integrative education :).
with respect
IR
We must remember that the ‘subversion of ego into a positive energy’, while an improvement on the current state of things if sustained, is not the highest ideal. It is still not consciousness. Identifying with the ego, ie. internalizing your actions, attaches you to them, and will inevitably push you to act too far unless you can awaken, ie. disidentify from the ego completely. An example would be an extreme believer of any religion hurting someone in the name of the religion, because the religion is perceived as the ultimate good.