The Ego

Once Brad and I watched a movie called Revolver, which was a silly bang-bang-shoot-'em-up movie with Jason Statham. I didn't expect much. It turned out to be really life-changing for me. It was on the tv again tonight. I was practically crying by the end. Not exactly what you'd expect from an action movie. [**Disclaimer: It is a pretty violent movie. There's a lot of killing and a lot of torture. I still can't watch the torture scenes. I don't like torture, and I don't care that it's fake. It's disturbing. I wouldn't recommend watching it without that previous knowledge. It bothers me, but it's not violence for violence's sake.**]

I like psychology. I find the human brain fascinating. I find the way that humans automatically deal with things, their reactions, and their coping mechanisms incredible. The mind is so unique, and people come up with the most extraordinary things. I've never formally studied psychology, besides a class here and there, but I frequently think about going back to school to really get into it. I don't, because I reeeeally don't want to go back to school, but I still find it intriguing.

Without giving too much away, the movie is about your enemy. As it turns out, and as Deepak Chopra tells us at the end, any external enemy is perceived. Our ego, or part of the brain which functions solely on seeking pleasure, will go to any length to protect itself, including labeling an outside force or being as an enemy. Without said enemy, the ego gets what it wants. In essence, what the Buddha calls desire. Not too bad, right? Thousands of years before Freud went about labeling the parts of our mind, the Buddha had identified and labeled the real enemy.

Think about it, though. If you had no desire, then you wouldn't care. Not care as in care about your family or love people or animals or trees who are close to you. Love really has nothing to do with it. But care as in you wouldn't need to present yourself in a specific fashion to anyone else. We choose what we want to be as children. I want to be the smart one, I want to be the funny one. This is who I am, this is my identity. Then we do everything we can to perpetuate that perception of ourselves. One of the thoughts that comes up so often when I talk with my friends about facebook is that everyone wants to look so cool. Look at the cool place I went and the cool things I did, because I'm just so fun and I live such a fun life. You want to look unique, special, interesting. I'm guilty of it. I definitely want everyone to think I'm cool. But I only want that because my ego says I do. Think of all the things I wouldn't do if I didn't care about what other people thought of me. I wouldn't be disgusted or embarrassed of (what I perceive to be) unflattering pictures of myself. I wouldn't worry so much about offending other people with my words or actions. And I wouldn't care about things other people say in direct opposition to mine. On occasion, I find myself getting angry when someone suggests I do something because I believe they're actually trying to tell me that they know better than I do, that they're smarter and I'm dumber. But who tells me that's true, and to feel that way? And even if this other person does believe I'm dumber and they're smarter, why should I believe it? If I just didn't care, what would it matter? It wouldn't. So this person thinks I'm dumb. All right. Whatever. The only power other people have over us is the power we give them. 

The difficulty here, of course, is that the ego is part of us. It's in our minds. We've listened to it every day for our entire lives. It's always there. It's always telling us what to say, what to do, how to feel. In the movie, they talk about how the greatest con is "I am you." Our egos tell us that its thoughts are our thoughts, its emotions are our emotions. That we're actually angry over this or that. Our ego convinces us it's our best friend, who only ever has our interests in mind. In reality, it only has its own desire. It knows of nothing else. And because it's so close, so very much a part of us, we don't even know that we have a choice. We're all walking around with our greatest enemy in our heads. There is no outside threat.

Recently, Nina posted a blog post on how happiness is a choice we make. I think we can all agree that the majority of people in the world believe that happiness is a situation. If only I had such and such, I would be happy. It's a dream we're always chasing. Material things, situations in life, the love of other people. Those things would make us happy. Wouldn't they? But we have a choice. Our choice is we can choose to let our egos run our lives, to let desire drive and drive and drive us, to let anger and frustration and fear and our overwhelming need to be utterly flattered rule our lives, or we can choose to let it go. We can focus on something outside of ourselves: or, the bigger picture, as people say. It's hard for us to even realize that reality exists outside of our heads. That there's a whole big world living and breathing out there, and we're just a small part of the whole. What does it matter if no one thinks I'm awesome? Does it matter if I don't have spades of money? Is that really a threat to me? I have everything I need to make the choice to be happy, right here, right now. These things are not a threat to me. They're not, because I won't let them be.

At one point in the movie, Jason Statham's character says to himself, "I see you. I know what you are." His ego then goes ballistic (it's kind of a bizarre but fascinating scene), because it knows that it's been recognized as the true enemy. We just have open our minds a little bit. We just have to realize who the real enemy is. Who keeps us from our happiness. It's us. It's that little voice in our heads telling us what to do and how to act. We have no control over anything outside of our head. Let it go. See your true self.