The Bottomless Well
The ego (or the unconscious mind pattern that most people have) is a bottomless well. Incapable of fulfilling itself. To the ego, everything is a threat as such it lives in a state of fear. It needs to win arguments, it needs to be right. It needs to be morally superior. By doing so, it survives. So it creates conflict, desires, war, and hurts others in order to create a sense of superiority. In feeling superior, it maintains its identity that it is alive.
Accumulating Objects To Fulfill Itself
To strengthen the sense of self or in order for the ego to inflate itself, it has to accumulate objects. It collects objects and attaches its identity towards it. “This is my car. This is my house. This is my lover. This is mine. This is my title which is the best basketball player ever, behold of my title, I bet you all want to have babies with me.”
When the ego or unconscious mind pattern gets an object, it feels relieved and satisfied. There is some sort of honeymoon period where the ego can just relish on the feeling that it has acquired something. So for a time, the ego feels fulfilled but as time goes on, the old mind pattern of accumulating objects comes back. It is like the story I told about the trophy that fades in time. When you get a trophy for being one of the best, you feel good but as time goes on, that trophy and that feeling that comes with it disappears.
The old mind pattern comes back. “I need to get this to be happy.” “I need to accomplish this to be complete.” “I need to complete the story of me.” “The story of me is amazing and I’ll publish my book and autobiography and everyone will be amazed at what I did and what I have.”
Of course, when you die, no one will really give a crap. Do you know who invented penicillin or the man who saved so many people’s lives? Most people don’t know nor care. In the end, people are too preoccupied with their thoughts about themselves to care about other people.
Wanting vs Having
Since the ego believes in completing itself in the future, it looks for salvation in the future. It is stuck in the future. It is stuck in time. But the future never comes because the future is just a pigment of imagination by the mind. There is only the present moment. But the ego cannot survive in the present moment, as such, it looks for salvation in the future and will always sacrifice the present moment so that “future me” can find salvation or happiness.
“If I get a house, I’ll be happy.” “If this girl becomes my girlfriend, I’ll be happy.” “If I become rich, I will be happy.”
“How about being happy right now?”
“Right now? Right now is terrible. Right now I don’t have the house that I need or lover that I want. I need “future me” to happen where I have all these objects so I can be happy. I’ll sacrifice right now so I can be happy and be saved in the future.”
Since the ego is stuck in the future, it is always stuck in wanting. It prefers to want or need rather than to have. In the present moment, you can appreciate or be grateful or be content with what you have but the ego cannot survive in the present moment as such it looks towards the future. By looking only at the future, the ego prefers to be always wanting or needing something as opposed to having. It would rather create thoughts of lack rather than thoughts of gratefulness or contentment.
“I need to be rich.” “I need to be famous.” “I need to accomplish something to add to the story of me so that other people will find me amazing.”
The ego is stuck in this place where the world has taken hostage the happiness that the ego desires. The world has to give or release the happiness so that the ego can be happy. The person that is egocentric is always in a feeling of unease as the world has taken hostage the idol of happiness that the ego wants and the world can also take away the objects that it has accumulated or identified with.
Greed
Since the ego is stuck in wanting, and humanity is very egocentric, our default state of being is greed. It doesn’t matter if you are poor, rich or somewhere in the middle. There will always be a need to have more, to get more, or to accumulate more objects. It is because you feel good temporarily whenever you get a new object.
A poor person may wonder why would a billionaire want more money? It seems like 1 billion would be enough. However, if you put the poor person in the billionaire’s shoes, it will be the same. The poor person that became a billionaire will still keep accumulating more and more because the ego is stuck in wanting and desires.
“I need more money for my kids then I need more money for my grandchildren.” “I need to have a bigger yacht or I want the newer model car. If I get all these things, I bet my neighbors and friends would envy me. They will be amazed at the glory of me or how I am so amazing.” Each time the ego accumulates an object, it will feel good temporarily.
It is a bottomless well because the ego can never be fulfilled. It will always seek out more because it is trying to find salvation in the future that does not exist. Almost everyone you will meet is in a state of lack or in a state of wanting. They need to feel safe, complete, happy and so on, and the only way to get those is by being rich, or getting a lover, or getting a house or getting whatever idol of happiness that the ego wants.
The World As Your Enemy
Since the ego is stuck in wanting, the object that it desires is being taken hostage by the world. As such, the world becomes its enemy. It has to take it from the world by any means necessary. When the ego finally gets the object after years of sacrifice, it will feel relief. “I FINALLY MADE IT!” But such a feeling does not last too long.
Soon, the ego finds itself in a predicament because it finds a new idol of happiness that will complete itself that it needs to have but at the same time it needs to protect the objects or idols that it previously accumulated. As such the world becomes its continuous enemy. The world has taken another idol hostage and the world could also take away the idols that the ego has already accumulated.
So almost everyone you will meet is in a state of unease. They are always in a state of worry and lack. A feeling of lack so deep that it can only be fulfilled temporarily and a feeling of worry that never goes away.
The Ego Needs The Praise Of The World – Comparing Yourself
If everyone owns a house, the ego cannot feel good about owning a house. If all of your friends own a mansion, the ego will not feel good if you have a mansion as well. Unless it is bigger. In order to feel good, the ego has to get something better than what the other people have. It would feel superior when it does get it. But at the same time, it would feel diminished if it only has the smallest mansion in the whole neighborhood.
It would feel good if it had the newest car model but it would feel diminished if it had the model a year ago while others have the brand new one. It would feel nothing if everyone had the same car and model.
As such the world has taken the happiness that the ego wants. To feel good, the ego needs to feel superior. In order to feel superior, it has to compare itself to another person or group of people. So the ego’s happiness is dictated by others. It can be morally superior or intellectually superior or my religion is superior than yours. In these cases, the ego would need to compare itself to others and create conflict to assert itself as the one that is far superior than the others.
The Ego Asks
The ego always asks “how can I go to a situation that is more fulfilling than right now?” As such, the present moment is sacrificed in order to work harder for a future moment that is a lot better in the ego’s thought system. But you can only find fulfillment in the present moment as such the ego often misses its mark. You can only feel the feeling of contentment, gratefulness or satisfaction in the present moment as such the ego hardly ever becomes satisfied or fulfilled. It is always looking for the next moment that will be a lot better and more fulfilling. It lives in an imaginary fantasy world where some time in the future, everything will be perfect as long as it acquires one object after another. It desires, acquires, and sacrifices the present moment in order to fulfill a void so deep that nothing can ever fill it.
Without The Voice In The Head
Without the voice in the head that constantly look for the next moment, the present moment is actually very satisfying. Drink a glass of water and just savor it, you will find it quite fulfilling. A walk around the block. Sitting down. Sleeping. Or not doing anything at all. The simple things become fulfilling and satisfying without the unhappy voice in the head that is always looking for a future moment that it believes is a lot better. The ego looks for something special, wants 1 million dollar cars, 40 million dollar homes, vacations where you spend 100k a day and so on. It overlooks the simple things as such it is always unhappy.
“My life is so ordinary, I’ll never be happy.” “I don’t have the cars, luxury or homes I see in instagram, I’ll never be happy.” And so on….
A bottomless well that desires, and thirsts but never satisfied. Once you are able to recognize this dysfunction, awareness can manifest itself. Awareness finds joy and fulfillment in the most simple of things. So be still, quiet the mind, and just enjoy the present moment whatever it may bring.
A Good Example – Finding Traffic Or Lines Annoying
The ego always wants to be unhappy. It thrives in unhappiness as such it creates thoughts that are always unhappy. So I mentioned this story before. I was going to hike and I got stuck in traffic. I find myself getting irritated and annoyed because the traffic was slow and long.
But if I think about it, I was in a car with air conditioner, and music playing on the radio. I was sitting down and very comfortable. I was in a very very good place. If I was hiking, I will be carrying a heavy bag, hiking under the hot sun and my body is going to be tired from the elevation gain. The car was very comfortable but the ego cannot see that since that is the present moment. It needs to be in the future to save itself. So it sacrifices the present moment, no matter how amazing the present moment is, because it looks into the future as its salvation or relief.
The ego would create voices in the head or self-talk. “Why can’t these people learn how to drive?” “These people are so slow and so stupid.” and so on. The unhappy voice in the head that is always complaining and looking at the future to save itself.
So We Go Back To The First Paragraph
The ego (or the unconscious mind pattern that most people have) is a bottomless well. Incapable of fulfilling itself. To the ego, everything is a threat as such it lives in a state of fear. It needs to win arguments, it needs to be right. It needs to be morally superior or intellectually superior, or physically more beautiful, or have more things and so on. By doing so, it survives. So it creates conflict, desires, war, and hurts others in order to create a sense of superiority. In feeling superior, it maintains its identity that it is alive.