When I grew up, I was most strongly influenced by my father. He was a thoughtful, quiet man, who believed his children were obligated to be the best and greatest. They should step out into the world, proud, strong, and beautiful, and the world would bow to their superior exemplification of humanity.
Unfortunately the amount of browbeating it took to try to get us there swallowed any nascent self esteem in each of us kids. The family dispersed rapidly as my generation came of age and fled, leaving my parents with their dysfunctional bond and enough money to circulate cheap whiskey in their veins for their remaining years. I left home when I was a fresh 16. Eager to be free of my family, but lost in a bigger world of real people to whom I was simply an entitled, smartypants young lady.
It took a good while to find? rebuild? grow? heal? an ego. Then, it was a tender thing, clinging to role models (usually professors) while its bones (or exoskeleton) hardened up. Even then, it was often misdirected and misapplied, but it was strong enough that combined with the Behemoth of a superego* was able to strive mightily to do things for whatever perceived greater good was in focus.
And so, I became the person who I am. Always doing, trying to leverage change for various underdogs, and seldom feeling worthy of any attention my efforts may garner, and I’m okay with that. I do blog and share about my efforts: brags or hoping to inspire? Probably a bit of each.
A strong ego is much like a lever. The distance from the object to be effected provided by Ego is proportional to its efficacy. The well-defined boundary differentiating the self from the rest provides discrete observational distance and therefore, objectivity. Better objectivity leads to efficiency and effectiveness. The Superego enables us to determine the nature of and direct our influence.
“I am” is the personal obelisk that we each erect against the universe. Whether we choose to thumb our nose at gravity by righting rocks or argue with evolution by saving the lepers and limpers, it’s our assertion that we own a gear in the grand clockwork as it churns relentlessly around us.
If this differentiation is so central to ethical impact, why then are empathy and connectedness also important. Is Ego selfishness or heroic? Is oneness with our world expansive or weak?
*I’m using Freud’s model of the psyche as a matter of narrative convenience, not strict adherence.