The core. The you that perceives, the you that navigates. It is the decision maker, it is the problem solver, it is the actor. It is the spark of personality that governs the construction of your ego, this spark of personality is inherent, you're not getting rid of it no matter how hard you try, you're not adding to it no matter how hard you try. The construction of your ego will govern how you utilize your inherent spark of personality. Where did this spark of personality come from? Why have I had it my entire life? It's mysterious...
The ego is the construction of thoughts and memories. Everything you've learned, everything you have built with your life, this is the ego. We ignore Sigmund Freud, we pretend that never happened, we go with where Carl Jung took it. However, he declared it solid, he declared the ego the solid seat of self awareness, the decision maker, the problem solver, the actor, we are removing this aspect of his understanding along with our modern psychedelic enlightenment. The ego is not solid, the ego is guided by the core. Observe the death of your ego and know that you still exist, you are still aware.
The persona is the face you wear in public, the thing that keeps the ego safe from the other egos, in some situations the very core safe from the other egos. Persona investment is generally a thing decided by your culture. Sometimes cultures that seem very persona invested are not at all persona invested, they simply know how to use the persona properly. These people look persona invested to the people from cultures confused about the nature of the persona, in some ways they have lost sight of the fact that what they are wearing is a persona, they think it's the core.
Ego Investment: Foreword by Kit Carruthers
Alright, your ego is all set and ready to go, as usual you've got your ego sparking prepared semi-consciously, you're ready to self elevate at yourself. Four fifths of you will submit immediately, one fifth of you will cling as hard as you can, ego sparking at the entire concept of your ego investment. You need to try your hardest not to cling to what you think is the self, what I'm hoping to achieve with this website is the hard hammer down that what you've been taught the self is supposed to look like is not ideal, just laugh at society's conception of the self. Can we... Forgive you? This is just what your level of cognitive functioning locks itself into? NO... No. But, if you do it right we can try to forget about it. You don't ACTUALLY need to kill yourself level two cognitive functioning, you're fucking all this all of you you're not alone in this, no that WASN'T... That wasn't the declaration of now you really need to kill yourself. Fucking. RELAX. Killing self makes more sense than looking at self is a malfunction of ego investment.
Ego investment is when you feel the urge to defend and declare your ego above the other egos. The full lack of ego investment at birth is only attainable within deep emotional repression and processing dysregulation, everyone else, whether you bypass your perceptual filters or not, will feel themselves ego sparking at people. It's take downable, you can get rid of this with introspection. Chances are none of you like it, chances are none of you choose to engage in it, we still declare you entirely ego uninvested, just, not perfect, not yet. Ego investment wise you're not perfect, it's just a stupid annoying little follow the reason on psychedelics moment, you'll find it's dumb it's nothing it's probably childhood. You know what happened, knowledge of this website should make it easier to deliver the solution. In some ways, the one I've built is better than yours, in some ways... I hate you brain. You're not going to like hearing this next line, but, finding a way to get rid of these ego sparks means your entire thinking clears up along with it. There was a certain static, it goes away along with your ego sparks. Don't even try to comprehend it, nobody can ever comprehend this static. What the fuck is this? Am I ego sparking at my desk? It feels a little like I'm ego sparking at my desk.
People of cognitive functioning level two, the ego is their everything, the ego declares themselves and in many ways the world along with it. The people who are smart enough to semi-consciously realize what they have declared is world but not smart enough to realize they have not and know they are to cling to this for dear life are the ego invested. The average, your average guy, the normal ones. These people are running a subconsciously reinforced semi-conscious system of self inflation other deflation on everybody they see at all times. An American will take this to a well compartmentalized long running detailed list, they generally have about three to five things on everyone they know and four to eight things on the things they think this person has on them. It is a complex and detailed system of "I can use, I've been given" that self reinforces and compounds with other intersecting "I can use, I've been given." Contradiction becomes reasonably irrelevant, if they're of higher intelligence they understand this information cannot enter semi-consciously, if they're of lower intelligence they get to do whatever they want. Somebody of cognitive functioning level two who has found either marijuana or psychedelics can generally figure out how to drop their ego investment, the rest of us really notice, this person has become a lot easier to deal with. To the others this person has become more chill, to us this person has entered into the realm of acknowledged.
Every single child of cognitive functioning level three, whether or not they have deep emotional repression and processing dysregulation but especially if they have deep emotional repression and processing dysregulation declare in childhood "You're all the enemy, all of you, you're all the force... The force of society of stupids. I don't get to say it." Deep emotional repression and processing dysregulation instantaneously turns all of you into a blur of hilariously absurdist pointless existence. I assure you it remains passive and detached, we're not invested in it. It becomes permanently compartmentalized as an intense distaste for the majority of people, it has to fall quietly into the background, ignored, we carry on with our day to day lives, we always know semi-consciously when we're speaking to one of these ones, we're semi-consciously likely fully consciously incredibly dismissive of every little thing coming out of you, we say the things we know semi-consciously and likely fully consciously keep you contained, we can't wait for you to go away.
After you've done some work, you'll look back at your semi-conscious ego reinforcement systems and realize the first thing you did when you opened The Society of Social Disturbance was "Oh look at this guy. I bet this guy thinks he's this. I bet this guy is this, and this, and this, and this, my this is so much better than his this, oh man my this is way better than his this, oh *sly smile* thanks society you've given me everything I need, I bet he thinks his this is so much better than my this, I bet he thinks his this is so much better than my this. Oh my god I am so this I am so this and this and this I am just in a state of euphoric blisyePCSHTMTHRFCKR!!" With some of you it will have gone to "I bet he thought he was really weird as a child, I bet he really was really weird as a child, I bet he's still a little weird as a child, I bet he still thinks about it every day I bet he does I bet he does I bet he's just that pathetic I bet he is I bet he is. ... ... I bet his daddy touched HIS penis." And then even after learning what you are looking at is undeniable, at every single one of us you were quite possibly still going "Okay, but they are... They are this they are this... I'm still very this, I'm still really really this, in some ways my this is superior to their this and their this. I still have a hold on this and and this and this and I can still use all of this to claim dominance over everything I am seeing. It's still possible at least three of these guys their daddy touched their penis. My daddy never touched my penis. Freaks." in a state of completely delusional blissful euphoric snap at the entire concept of something becoming real.
It's all automatic. That doesn't make it okay. Some of you follow it all the way to full conscious and float in it. That's really not okay. Go away. The knife is in the drawer beside the sink.
These are the smart ones, level two cognitive functioning, these are the ones capable of fixing their filter mechanism and attaining something more palatable. If you're not smart enough to know how to do this with your ego at the other egos, cognitive functioning level one, other people have probably been running the construction of your ego for you, and I'm afraid you're not really capable of ever attaining anything overly impressive. You've pretty much been the best you can be your entire life. A lot of the time you can demonstrate more wisdom than these annoying idiots. We all like you better, we all like you a lot better. You generally understand your level of intelligence, it's within a pretty similar territory as theirs. Unfortunately, some cultures will teach these people "You are to reinforce your ego. Here is all of the information you will need."
People of cognitive functioning level three can still find a certain ego investment in certain situations. Generally it is a trauma cover up, sometimes it's only a social trauma cover up. Or, it's misuse of fully customizable compartmentalization, the only way anybody ever learns how to use fully customizable compartmentalization as a child before they know what it is, unfortunately before they get the chance to understand what they're doing they've already fragmented themselves. Or you're American. These people operate within the same world as the rest of us within cognitive functioning level three, unfiltered however they behave in the manner of a person who is filtered, they're subconsciously forcing the filtered. We notice, it leaks out in your every behaviour, even when you're not blatantly declaring your ego we feel something. Psychopathy will leave you ego invested whether or not you're of cognitive functioning level three. If you ever wish to truly get along with the others, if you ever wish for them to stop spreading their evil secrets, you need to learn how to take down as much of it as you can, ignore the rest, never ever present any of your ego investment.
High intelligence cognitive functioning level two people can become really annoying when they're ego invested, as they become brilliant semi-conscious conversation diverters, always bringing you to the subtle you're wrong. "You know I don't get shrimp, I don't like it." "Everybody in Manitoba says they don't get shrimp, it's curious. It's because you'll never find good sea food in the prairies." "Yeah but we do have all sorts of good fresh water fish." "Right. But. The shrimp. The thing we were speaking of." It doesn't matter what the conversation is, locked into the previous statement and there's always a "Yeah but." You've enslaved yourself to your subconscious mechanism.
I had an argument on the internet. I was explaining sociopath, I mentioned that I am both an empath and a sociopath. I was met with "Uh no. Sociopath bad empath good. Sociopath empath no. You're an idiot. No there is no such thing as a person who can understand themselves that is an impossible concept. You just said you don't have a PhD you've automatically disproven everything you've said. ... ... YEAHYEAHYEAHNICENICENICE OH MY GOD I BET EVERYONE THINKS I THINK I LOOK SO INCREDIBLE OH MY GOD THIS IS BLISS OH YEAHYEAHYEAH. You know what I can do? I can deliberately use my stupid, I can just totally whammy you with very obvious deliberate use of my stupid. What do you think of that? I can just... Do that. I can just present this to you, pretend that I think that you think that I think I've won, pretend that I think that you think that I think that everyone else thinks I've won. You intimidated? AW, you don't get to do this AW, HAHA. NIIIIIICE YEAAAAAHHHH. Oh. I see. Sorry sir. Well there goes every single thing I've been my entire life." Obviously this new information declared you a sociopath and you were still within your system of labels. Empaff have empathy in it, that word nice label, nice label, we all trust the empaff. "That one was really unnecessary. The... Stupid need to fall in line? Let the ones capable of thinking decide our society? There's no need for that kind of language. Who do you think you are? What on Earth could ever give anybody the right to say that?" You will see, there is a deep need for that kind of language. For the record, throughout his entire fit I was technical and proper, I was outlining straightforward, I was not even subtle mocking in word language, I entirely ignored all of his mockery and focused only on explaining the concepts. It was not working, I had to close it. "But... You don't just get to do that. You're not supposed to PENETRATE the ego, that is not the social game. The social game is letting nonsensical ego battle fly all over the place in a state of hyperactive euphoria everybody knowing nobody can ever win because everything everyone is saying can only ever ring at most half true while revealing your projection. That's how we maintain. This is how it is supposed to be. You people who actually mysteriously penetrate are enraging, you have problems no psychiatrist could ever handle. The deep social darkness you bring upon the room. It's like you're in your own little world, you have no idea how to even look at yourselves, you're entirely oblivious to everything we want you to be. We are sick and tired of you and your ego." Oh, and I also wish to bring up unrelated, the person who thinks that I think that he thinks he brought me back to reality also gave me an incredibly long detailed explanation of the difference between genre and sub-genre relating it to classes of animals after I said post-metal technically isn't a sub-genre but I'm not an ass about it. I explained to him afterwards, after he had gone on for about seven paragraphs that I believe may have had diagrams, it is a collection of various sub-genres, it is a blanket label for a collection of various sub-genres of metal. I don't bother addressing the idea of these people suggesting I am a person that could never exist within any framework of artificially created realities. Anymore. I don't want to have to yell at a Scandinavian person. I like Scandinavian people. You're supposed to listen to this stuff and know these things you idiot, that's the image I have created of a Scandinavian who created a music forum you idiot. The other guy wasn't even American, no, he was Eastern European, so, that's just what's at the bottom of the ego snap it doesn't matter where you're from, I think he realized what just happened was the source of why a lot of people in his life don't like him. He didn't like the depressing bleakness of his culture, he was elevating himself out of it. No I'm not obsessing over our war on societal standard smiley face, but, if you want to elevate yourself out of 98% of the people around you, you're going to need to do some work. I guess he elevated himself other diminished me hard in a previous conversation when I cultural anthropology explained to him the beauty of his own culture. Yer ignorant you just see things as a cultural stereotype from outside the stereotype you don't know is people.
Pretending not to see each other's pretending for pretend, pretending that you know everyone else is pretending to not see you pretending. Pretending everyone thinks this makes perfect sense to everybody. Pretending we're not pretending to pretend.
"Everyone wishes they were all of the things I pretend they know I am that I know I am not and I know they do not. Everyone but me is all of the things I pretend I don't know I am and I pretend they know they are and I am not."
"The victory we all strive for is the declaration that we are the one who is the most oblivious to the fact that everything we know to be real is pretend, everything we believe is pretend, everything we think we're supposed to say and do is pretend. For pretend."
Random drive by ego battle motherfuckers.
Once you get all of this sorted out, you will be surprised to find out how much of your day to day conversation was ego declaral ego battle. You unpackage all of it, you'll find you no longer have the urge to say about half the things you used to say. Ego declaral that subsides quietly and pleasantly into the background, it's just normal day to day conversation, everything is harmless, everything about it is normal. Oh. Now... Now when somebody burns food, the thought is "AHH SMOKE ALARM MOTHERFUCKER" and not... Me entering the inside of their anus, declaring that I have resolved all of my feelings towards this person and my superiority over this person and in this moment I get to feel the bliss of "You did it again!" Pretty much with all conversation relating to the interpersonal and not the intellectual, you're trying to be inside of the person and declare their ego invalid and your ego valid. Whoever it is you're talking about you hope you can make their ego invalid and your ego valid you hope this person you're speaking to isn't going to try and make this person's ego valid. And it shows. When you're at the very top of ego investment semi-consciously, it shows dramatically, when you're anywhere up until then it only shows every now and then.
Whether or not you are the type to feel the bliss of declaring yourself upon every other unsuspecting ego, it is only natural to the ego invested that every little affair of every other ego is the business of your ego. You are to make everything that is their ego conform to your correct ego. You're monitoring their life, you're monitoring their interaction, you're monitoring how long they take to go to the bathroom, you will be the one making their decisions, you will be the one in charge of who they currently are and who they are supposed to be, you see a person doing something you're automatically all up in what they're doing making sure everything is running smoothly, at the very least you will be needing to know what this something is even though you know it is a thing that will in no way interest you but you know you need to suck whatever it is they're doing into you and make them look you in the eyes when they explain to you how they're looking for a pencil, you need them to know that whatever it is they're doing you know what it is you have it labeled, you're making sure everything about them fits properly into place, it's your life's work. Yes, yes, there is a concept of self, that is a thing, you don't need to be all subconsciously invested in it.
You will note, in early childhood, all teasing is related to what is currently happening, in this moment the child may start talking about the other child's stupid face. It isn't until the construction of the ego has been filled with enough information to declare itself, officially declare a concrete identity, a concrete awareness, unique methods of perception and unique subjectivities that children develop the subconscious obsession with the concept of self and just start roaming the playground looking for children they can declare themselves upon with a series of labels. This is when they start developing all of the self normalizing and self justifying labels, all of the labels they need for anybody who has a problem with this kind of behaviour. You're trapped, you're trapped inside of mind of nothing, you have the labels for the outside and you have the labels for the inside, you understand none of it, if you understood them you would understand these terms in your dictionary have no definition, they merely lead to more terms in your dictionary with no definition.
Your communication is always on the level of the implied inside of other people. Oh so now suddenly you just care about this person's party. This entire time you've been monitoring this person, this person isn't as excited about this party as you are. Now they seem to have expressed a little interest in this person's party. FINALLY, you've realigned yourself into the thinking of the one who is doing the thinking. You're always instructing people of what they desire and how they are to obtain it, maybe you're really good at it though maybe you're running a complex system of surveillance on this person eating their meal, you're thinking as you eat their meal my meal their meal... My. I know I would want salt. You say "You know there IS salt. There IS salt on the table it's right there." All the way to things along the lines of "I see you're wearing..." rather than just "I like your shirt." You're telling a story and it starts with you being in the middle of doing one of those activities you do, and so the story is interrupted with "Of course you were!" *charming laughter* You're at a barbecue, people are getting food, you're standing ten feet behind them waiting around. "The food is over here. The line up is here." "Yes I am aware of that, I'm waiting over here I'll get to it when I get to it." "No but. The line up is HERE, not there. The line up is HERE. You need to be standing HERE. NOW." Now you can either dehumanize yourself into a whimpering child and say "Okay I'm sorry I'll get in line..." Or you can say "No I'm good" and expose yourself as a bizarre social anomaly of hostility, you fucking angry drunk edge cut motherfucker, yeah take THAT society Jesus Christ man.
You're always trying to draw people into your thing, often times your thing is something you have invented for us that you're calling our thing and now we have to drop everything and do it or we're assholes. Oh what you're doing is too important? Come on I have a thing. Obviously people who are not ego invested will still come up with things that involve other people and hope these people do them, however we approach these things differently. We don't come up with things strictly for the purposes of demonstrating we're capable of coming up with things that involve the others. We don't attach to them like a magnet and say "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, we're doing a thing, we're doing a thing. What's your problem!? What's your problem!? I have a thing. OKAY. OKAY. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Jesus Christ don't you see how much of an asshole you look like right now bringing out all my passive aggressive body language? What are you doing to me!? Why are you doing this!? We're doing a thing."
You're running a semi-conscious system of frantic grasping at oversimplified self serving associations. You speak to somebody through a closed door, you automatically assume you have the situation figured out everything is running as you understand it to be running. They don't respond immediately because their mouth is full, you'll quick jump to the assumption that they're pissed off, at YOU, for NO REASON. WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. Now you have to draw them into an abstraction of a conversation that should never happen over your intense system of ego monitoring, everything's fine, calm down, relax, it's just a two second pause between responses, call off your guns everything will be fine. It's fine. It's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine. Or... This person DID in fact respond in time, their voice fully audible, but your hearing happens to suck and you didn't catch it, so "WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER MEEEEEEE? WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?" "I DID ANSWER YOU, YOU DIDN'T HEAR IT." "Yeah, but, still, that's still a little bit not cool of you..." You hear somebody's voice crack you're going to draw an association and auto-confirm it on your own self confirmation projection and incorrect analysis, what if they were just laughing two seconds ago? Well now they're crying. What's wrong? I see what's happening here, we need to initiate an Open Door Policy, what these children do behind closed doors is pretty dark and evil, these children have no understanding of how to operate within a society, these children need to be held accountable.
This is for me? Yes? Everything of the other is for me? Well, you ARE within my world are you not?
You need to demonstrate at all times that you have this whole other self thing handled, now obviously the ego uninvested are not just going to let their shit stay in people's way if they know it's in somebody's way they'll move it or in some cases when noticing it's about to be in their way oh shit sorry is this in your way sorry I got it. They won't try to predict the behaviours of people and make sure to demonstrate they're considering how their ego could be perceived as obnoxious, ask "Oh is this going to be in your way?" the second a person enters the room and nobody has any idea what they're going to do in here... Hoping to feel the bliss of demonstrating what this obnoxious asshole puts me through everybody see what this obnoxious asshole is making me do how was I supposed to know this was going to be in his way?
In these moments an empath can really feel the intense darkness within ego investment. If this thing actually was about to be in your way and now they have to clean it up... The long drawn out silent emotional tremble. Look. Look at me. Now you know what I am. Now you know what you are. Smile motherfucker, you have been validated. I bet you wanted to sit here and passive aggressively give me clues about this being in your way as you try to work, didn't you!? Well I'm not going to let you do that you passive aggressive freak. You appear to have found the path to happiness, we leave you alone.
There are a lot of things we don't get to say to the ego invested. We have to leave you in your own little world of saying whatever you want to whoever you want, including us. The act of explaining our thinking is automatically seen as self justification, the act of challenging you automatically fits us into one of the labels you have within your bank of ego reinforcement. I want to JUSTIFY my personal desire to spend money on something that isn't particularly important because I am an IRRESPONSIBLE IDIOT. I want to JUSTIFY my personal desire to listen to underground music because I am a PRETENTIOUS WANABEE. I want to JUSTIFY my personal desire to acknowledge life tragedy because I am a DRAMA QUEEN. Oh you still wish to weasel your way out of my assessment? Are you saying I'm a NAG? Are you saying I'm UNCOOL? Are you saying I'm EMOTIONALLY REPRESSED? Because I'm actually RESPONSIBLE and you're PATHETIC. I'm actually REAL and you're TRY HARD. I'm actually CENTRED and you're WEAK.
We're all trembling at the force of your labels. Any time you're in a line of people doing things, it's your turn at the thing. You feel the guy behind you studying your movements, semi-consciously ego monitoring your every movement with intense detail. With a big fat smile he's going to approach you and say "I have this labeled. I have what you are doing labeled. It's you. I understand something about you. You're the guy who either likes a little more or a little less sweet and sour sauce than I do."
Your labels are concrete and undeniable. Once an ego has been declared understood there's nothing the other ego can say to get out of now their ego is to be altered, everything they could ever say has been labeled and is understood.
It can go to some really evil places. Only you people will keep a pet friend. We keep him around because he is OBLIVIOUS to how he is perceived and he makes us look SO INCREDIBLE. We take him to meet a new person, we give this person an evil little look we say, LOOK, LOOK AT HIM. LAUGH. TELL THE OTHERS. HE'LL NEVER SEE IT. To you this kind of behaviour fits into, like, just off normal, just a little bit off baseline but it's just a little social fun it's perfectly acceptable. Obviously I'm not talking to you, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant with Karl Pilkington, you do it the blatantly correct way.
On the internet it causes some very severe problems, obviously America is the worst with this but obviously no culture is immune. Now finally these people can do what they've always wanted, release every little adoydoydoy comment on every single person they see all over everywhere. These people automatically assume they're smart enough to grasp everything, they see a thing they don't grasp, they know this means it is to be mocked, they automatically assume they make good comments, they approach with ultimate smugness. They go person to person on the internet with repressed nerd rage drawing the rest of us into the most infuriating of discussions with a person who can finally tell the world what they've always known, now that I have no fear of you punching my face I know I'm the only thing in this existence that is smart just because all of existence keeps calling me stupid doesn't mean I could ever be smart enough to grasp that I'm stupid. They assume we're having a discussion relating to the other party taking their perfect comments real seriously because how could we possibly be having any other discussion how could I ever possibly grasp that. It's actually a bit of a self fragmented internet psychosis, it's a pretty perfect example of ego snap. It's why internet message boards had to die, cognitive functioning level three came into the secret, oohhh when these things meet reality they just kill themselves, they don't fix themselves they just kill themselves. One little paragraph. Dead. Start trying to speak to another person. Another ego invested American nerd enters. Dead. Another. Dead.
Entirely lost in your own little world. Anybody challenges this kind of thing as incorrect behaviour, they are labeled. You understand this scary world outside of your behaviour so it's okay you understand it you have it labeled.
You can never have a problem with any of these people, you basically need to go along with every little thing they say. With the ego uninvested, yes of course you can still have a potential incident when you have a problem with them, however it will quickly be drawn into a complex conversation and eventually an agreement will be met, apologies will be made, people will make changes. The ego invested will adopt the mental stance, you are about to be a very bottom of irredeemable garbage person for ever challenging the ego invested in any way whatsoever. You have no way out of it, they're going to vomit all of their thoughts about how you have no right to be who you are everything about you is my imaginary list of ego reinforcement everything about me is my imaginary list of ego reinforcement there's no person on Earth who has the right to disagree with a single thing I say. I have all of the ego invested societal standards and pop psychology concepts I need to support the obvious fact that I am the centre of the universe and all challenging of the centre of the universe is an act of pure evil. You follow it all the way it pretty much ends on the fully conscious screeching crying implied admission that what I am doing is attempting to intimidate you into how oblivious I pretend to be to how awful I know I am to everybody I see for absolutely no reason I am pure garbage, you don't get to say anything it's protected you PIECE OF SHIT. You can trigger this moment over not wanting to go out to dinner with them, you can trigger this moment over not cleaning your desk when they've told you to clean your desk even though they never need to see it they work in a different cubicle or forgetting to turn off the light in somebody else's house who cares not about whether or not this light is turned off. The worst thing you could ever say to one of these people is "You don't need to worry about it." That's the moment that incurs the deepest of "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!? WHAT DO YOU THINK GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHO TO BE!?"
In those rare moments we actually do bring one of you down to Earth and extract a humble admission out of you, you will automatically filter and mellow what happened, you do it semi-consciously, retell the story of yourself behaving in a manner that is within normal reality giving yourself the normalizing behavioural labels, rearranging and entirely altering your motivations into something that makes sense on the level of normal people interaction you still behaved entirely reasonably you just kind of perfectly normal flew off the handle. You'll entirely rephrase everything you spoke in order to mellow it into the reality of what we've all been taught is normal communication, the way people interact on television, the way you non-ego invested people interact with each other. It's always painfully obvious to the receiver your semi-conscious motivations in saying something, but as you never saw your own semi-conscious motivations you can easily alter them to whatever totally excuses you makes you sound perfectly reasonable, it's all the same to you. You'll throw in your snide little passive aggressive jabs about how it's a little ridiculous that anybody could ever have such a problem with the event in question considering how perfectly normal and within our perceived reality it was. Even if you think you're not that bad, any semblance of ego investment whatsoever and in certain situations you're automatically going to start rephrasing your statements and mellowing the event. The ego invested know semi-consciously to turn a blind eye to this and become it along with whoever is doing it, it's an incredibly necessary subconscious trigger, otherwise in these moments you will begin to see yourself as everybody else sees you.
An ego invested is entirely incapable of proper apology, it will never happen. The first four words of every apology is "It's just that I..." and what you're about to hear is nothing but justification, passive aggressive jabs at how ridiculous you are for not gratifying them as they destroyed you and not gratifying them right now while they're at their most humble. Chances are if it's coming out of an ego invested person it's for a thing that's impossible to forgive without murdering them anyway. The amount of emotional and intellectual hammer it would take to get an ego invested person to apologize properly would cause them to be a depersonalized thought looping disorder level three nightmare for the rest of their lives.
Ego invested reinforcement then carries on with the other ego invested people behind the victim's back, they tell each other it's okay this person is like that you have to see them as this particular type of sad and pathetic and just know that some people are just this sad and pathetic and we just have to be forgiving of this kind of thing. Just as pretty much all analysis of people with the ego invested is... You have to look at them as this particular type of sad and pathetic and stupid and oblivious, it's fine, it's everyone but me. Then the two people having the conversation go and find the other ego invested people, they talk about the sad pathetic conversation they just had, this person is entirely oblivious. Then these people part ways and go find more ego invested people, they talk about the sad pathetic conversation they just had, this person is entirely oblivious.
We don't really want to speak to you, we're not pathetically reaching for your approval just as you know everyone is obviously always pathetically reaching for your approval, we simply know semi-consciously or fully consciously that if we ever stopped maintaining your precious false gratifications we would incur the wrath of two and half billion mouth gaping idiots screaming "THIS GUY'S TOO GOOD TO TALK ANYBODY HE THINKS HE'S SO GREAT HE'S SO HIGH AND MIGHTY HE'S SO HIGH ON HIMSELF HE JUST THINKS HE'S SO FANTASTIC TOO GOOD FOR ANYONE EVEN THOUGH HE HAD NO FRIENDS FOR TWO MONTHS IN GRADE SEVEN HE HAS A SHIT FETISH HIS UNCLE RAPED A CHILD HIS FATHER SPENT THREE MONTHS IN PRISON ONCE I SAW HIM WEAR A PINK SHIRT ONCE I SAW HIM SPEND HALF AN HOUR IN THE BATHROOM."
You have to maintain the conversation of pretend, we pretend we enjoy maintaining this conversation. If you do not, you are a jackass, you have to understand how to be considerate of the others, this is how we keep each other validated keep each other pretending to be appreciated. If somebody wants to give you advice, you need to validate them, even though you know they know they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about and you know they know you know this, you know they like to pretend, you know they like talking, you validate them.
You don't get to see your semi-conscious mind going "Well if he gets up in the middle of his meal to go to the bathroom his food might get cold, who knows how long that could take? I wouldn't do that, bathrooms don't need to be gone to that badly. It's okay to go to the bathroom, it's cool it's cool, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay you're really pushing it. You're really playing with it. ... ... You don't know what happens with these people you don't know they just close the door they're out of sight you DON'T KNOW, you don't KNOW what's happening once that door is closed... So many things can go wrong in there so many things there's medical things there's emotional things... It gets so tense in there you just know if I don't finish somebody might think I'm having a medical thing an emotional thing and now they're thinking about the fact that it's just because they're taking a shit and now they're thinking about every side of what society does to this kind of thinking dreading that awful moment where somebody knocks on the door and asks if everything is okay do you think shitting is an abomination or do you think it's okay to go potty I want to know I want to feel it I mean why would anybody do that what's wrong with people why are you putting so much god damned importance on how long people go to the bathroom and now... IT'S... Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don't know I don'tknowWHATSHAPPENINGINTHERE... He might be having a FREAK OUT!!! Maybe I should knock on the door ask if everything is okay..." It creates a lot of very annoying communication.
If anybody has a problem with any of this they are labeled a "Leave me alone!" sad gwumpy gwump or a "You need to just leave people be, let them live" floaty float hippie. You develop complex philosophies relating to the absurdity of not being this, what actually happens when we leave people alone. People are not self sufficient, everyone would just die, they'd all cry themselves to death. You want no cooperation, no regulation, that's what you want. If we're not doing this to people, there goes the transfer of knowledge, nobody knows anything about anything. You are trying to REDUCE COMPLEXITY by declaring DISINGAGEMENT as VIRTUE, there what do you think of that? You saw me use complex wording I think, the person I said this to is probably about twenty times smarter than I am but I'm pretending that you're pretending that I'm pretending that the others are pretending that I'm pretending I think I look like I've won, HAH! Now I'm just going to slip semi-conscious and join the plotting level two cognitive functioning American nerds in a Nintendo 64 bunker under a bridge society.
No, no you don't lose any of the interpersonal interaction aspects of our existence without ego investment. It isn't so I'm just supposed to focus entirely on my own life and never have any comments about the other lives. It's within the vicinity of that but it most certainly is not that. You still have interest in the other people, you still want to understand them you still want to visit their internal world. You still have opinions about them, you're still permitted to voice your opinions about them. You'll see.
You're not as likely to go telling somebody things like "Your foot on the table is dangerously close to my drink." You'll just either have to trust them or think "Dick." and covertly move your drink, so you are losing a little communicative self safety, but, it won't be as outrageous to you if they spill your drink, it won't be an ego offense it will just be an offense. If you just take care of the situation yourself, this person will likely think "Dick. PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE. Why don't you just say it!? Passive aggressively declare your ego upon me, wuss." But. Oh well. You may still tell somebody they're dangerously close to your drink in some situations if it appears to be out of your control or if you happen to feel like being broken like you've been taught and then feel like an asshole, however generally you don't so much care.
You're less likely to give people the little things you think will subtly validate them, you're taking an interest in them. A lot of these little things are pretty fucking annoying anyway. A lot of the time we don't want to have to signal that we have enjoyed this validation. Sometimes they can draw us into an inconvenience. It can go to places like thinking we would like to know that we fit properly within your super cute ego by giggling about accidentally dropping the food off our fork before it hits our mouth. You. Need. To. Stop. Monitoring. My. Chewing. And. Swallowing.
You can communicate similar things however with a different understanding, the other party can generally detect the proper understanding. Such as "Aw" at somebody whimpering in pain, it's a semi-ironic communication that is not designed to enter you. However when done the ego invested way it can very easily be "Aw just like an adorable puppy oh I love adorable puppies it's okay adorable puppy I can save you." You make people uncomfortable.
Even if you're not doing this, all of your conversation is on the level of... What I pretend you are inside of me in order to suit me. This is the expression of my personality, I alter what I know you to be in order to make it fit me. This is just the normal baseline of communication, this is why people are unique, we all have a unique subconscious manner of making other people fit into what we feel they should be. Everybody is very uncomfortable with it. Everybody knows everybody is pretending.
Another thing that goes backwards with ego investment, and this kind of thing is another reason we all have to train ourselves into intense falseness with you people, is the moments where we allow an unrelated, or, well, you're ego invested it may well be semi-related, annoyance leak out of our face. This is the thing labeled unrelated emotional issues, I understand this. You tell the person not to make their problem your problem, you are in a you problem I don't need you being short with me. You tell the person they're too lost in their own world, right now they're not seeing the world outside of their own world. You tell them don't make this for me this isn't for me. Well. You need to not make your problems with my problems my problem, right now I am choosing to be within my world and you may well get caught in the crossfire with a tone of voice or certain shortness, you need to understand that this isn't about you, this doesn't belong to you, my feelings do not belong to you, you need to not be so lost in your own world and see the world outside of your world. Your subconscious mind is automatically in a centre of the universe solipsism, you think everybody is doing this for you. It's so annoying, because now we're drawn into a big fat nothing discussion and it's all about you trying to explain to us how this isn't about you, you're telling us stop being annoyed STOP BEING ANNOYED THIS ISN'T AT ME. STOP. STOP. STOP BEING ANNOYED. NOW. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW TO WORK BRAIN IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ANNOYED TURN IT OFF.
There are many broken off communications commonly accepted within our society due to the ego invested, this kind of thing carries on as normal and accepted. "Well not if you're going to be pissed off." is a bad one, well not if you're going to be aware of what I did and what I am and actually allow it to come out of your face and break all societal rule structure, if you're going to be a big pouting baby and break the societal rule structure of allowing me to say and do whatever I want to you entirely oblivious, then I'm going to have to be the mature adult and say NO. I'M NOT GOING. MMNN!! "So you're saying I'm WRONG!?" If you're going to just go existing as a person outside of my delusional construction of you, be so OUT OF THIS WORLD IMPOSSIBLE, that you would dare imply that you are not the other diminished projection of myself that you are, you are attacking ME PERSONALLY, it's OUTRAGEOUS, WHERE DO YOU GET THE NERVE? You think you're better than me!? You just won't let anybody argue with you will you? Intellectual bulldozer... You don't know how to interact you just think it's all about YOU.
A lot of you are entirely oblivious to your semi-conscious passive aggressive tone, you have no idea people can tell you're working on a lot of resentment, you yourself may not realize you're working on a lot of resentment. We all assume there's no way you're oblivious and so when we address your tone we enter into a very infuriating conversation.
Now, this may alarm you, but your current conception of empathy is ego invested. Never never never do anything to hurt another ego, because we all know the moment of ego penetration is a thing we fear about as much as we fear death. Somebody who is not ego invested, to somebody who penetrates an ego the response is "Oh my God ouch. You are an asshole. He had it coming." Only an ego invested would declare "That is not your RIGHT. You have NO RIGHT, to speak to ANYBODY like that." Because this person knows, they too are within an entirely delusional reality, they're happier not knowing what it is, the moment of ego penetration is the destruction of an entire delusional reality, you just brought down an entire reality. You are the destroyer of worlds, you obviously know there is no reason to destroy worlds, just stay in your happy delusional reality and let this person stay in theirs hurting every other reality with all of the things you just broke to them, happy and oblivious.
Maintain everybody's ego, internally you drive them into the dirt and elevate yourself into the position of their master, but outwardly you are to never hurt them, at least not in a manner they will ever be allowed to tell you they see, because ever exposing this sort of thing is an ego travesty that is the end of your relationship and the relationship of whatever other egos you can turn against their ego.
You always make the person in front of you happy. Whatever they need, they get. They need to ego battle at the people you like, you share your ego battle with them, you keep them happy. Then you probably go find the friend you just tarnished with them and share your ego battle at the other person with this friend leaving out all of the things you said about them. You think empathy is going around volunteering the dominance of your ego, you're a helpful person you see a person on the street who looks sad you decide you need to enter into the dual self incident, you have no idea what the fuck is an anything you don't know what this person's sadness means not only in the unawareness of the subjective experience manner but also the unawareness of the significance of the concept of sad due to your implanted education manner, I mean for all you know this person isn't even bubbly and they have lived a life of sheer bubbly horror and what they're feeling right now is pretty much one point off of comfortable, you don't understand every psychological detail of the assistance you're offering this person and how chances are all it is is pure dehumanization into the warm grasp of your superior ego that this person will likely only perceive semi-consciously, however they sense it, this is an annoying person. This person now has to play you, they know you may well press they have to understand how to keep you in your happy little superior ego dream world and assure you th-that the-the sit-sit-situation is either h-handled or n-n-not s-s-such a big d-d-deal as the potential outcomes in this scenario are this person following you around for the rest of your day nagging you or screaming in your face outrage over what a horrible person you are for not embracing this person's warm caring superior ego. You've found an ego magnet, you can figure out how to release it peacefully, violently or submit to the magnet.
The ego magnet submits all humanity, I'm sure you have a life outside of being the magnet but right now all you are is an inanimate magnet. Chances are it won't be up to an hour of the magnet, but, you never know, it could be four. When you've gone into your home and closed the door, it's deemed psychotic to continue being a magnet for any more than another twenty minutes, but, you never know, they might be psychotic.
One person can give another person an insult and this person takes it entirely in jest, however this exchange was being monitored by somebody who was not in any way interested in being within it, they must now insert themselves in this conversation that had already began to perfectly comfortably move on and suck everything into themselves and make a big dramatic scene over what a HORRIBLE thing that is to say. He's fine. Yes, but my concept of self and therefor delusional construction of him that is currently only about half way on top of him is NOT fine. I'm fine. You need to not tolerate this kind of thing, you're oblivious to proper behaviour, these things are not taken in jest these things are taken seriously.
The expectation that empathy is whatever the person addressing you needs they get leads to the outrage from your populace that you have made the decision to make three within your nation unhappy to make five hundred outside of your nation happy, sacrifice one of your own people to save five of another nation's people. Bigger picture thinking is a SELF justification, it's what you say to justify YOU making ME unhappy, only EVOWL people ever say bigger picture thinking. The ego is the enemy of globalization. If it were YOU who committed a murder, would you want the punishment you deserved? No, you would want understanding and compassion. Sociology is not my field, it clearly could be if I wanted it to be, but we have others who can specialize further from my point outs. MINE. My point outs. ...If it were YOU, would YOU want to become aware of everything you are to all of us? Would YOU want to become aware of all of the harm you are doing to society?
I don't even want this to be my big thing, I just got born a thing and then it's a big thing okay? I am in no way invest-OKAY. Fucking. No. I. No I am not floating on myself. No I-No I am not trying to impress y-NO. I. I. No I am not trying to impress you with a lack of trying to impress you. NO I am not trying to impress you by not trying to impress you with a lack of trying to impress you. No I am most certainly NOT trying to be the one who gets to help you, no I-I...
Knowing and understanding your position on the hierarchy is not ego investment, what you used to call egotistical. There's nothing else we can do, any attempt to fake our way out of what we know we are is actually a pretty ego invested move. Declaring your position on the hierarchy in a manner not self mocking, is, of course, pretty egotistical, the ego uninvested can fall for it, they generally don't like themselves when they do it. If a person likes themselves when they do this they don't deserve their egotism... We declare them ego invested. Even being an any excuse to tell a cool story about your life person, this does not declare you ego invested, even though you are asserting your ego you're asserting your ego upwards and not into any other ego, it does not declare an obsession with the self it merely declares an admiration of the self. The level of casual comfort and floatiness presented during story time, the specific level of frequency and forcing, is where you can detect if it is an obsession with the self or an admiration of the self.
No, the ego uninvested are never trying to impress you, we are trying to be impressive. It's not for you, our entire being is not our pathetic reaching for your personal approval, it's just trying to be the best us. You're annoying.
Moment to moment, we wish to do things that are impressive we wish to be impressive. There is a separation between the one labeled ME is impressive and what I did is impressive. With you people, when you try to impress people you hope everyone goes all the way into your insides and redeems everything they know you are. With us, we're just aware of the fact that when we are impressive it means the whole of the self is impressive and by the time our image build is complete... The whole of the self is impressive is a thought that barely ever registers, pretty much only at our peak moments. In these peak moments, the whole of the self doesn't float into the heavens it's just quite satisfied. The whole of the self doesn't start listing off all the other things that make them impressive in their head, though they may non-verbally drift towards a few of them. We pretty much give ourself one deliberate wording and we realize we've blown it we don't get to do this.
Some of you can clue into it... There's, like, a certain subsection of the population who's just too good to talk to this subsection of the population. They're all off in their own little world of self importance they only want to have sophisticated conversation they're too good to speak to the average person. Well, we don't mean to be, you leave us no choice. It does have a little bit to do with the fact that the conversation you wish to have is in no way interesting to any of us however it is mostly due to the fact that we've formed a subconscious safety system utilizing our semi-conscious awareness that deflects with our fully conscious observation. Being brought into extended conversations with the majority of you can be dangerous. Literally. In some situations there is the possibility of life override, in pretty much all situations there is the possibility of the destruction of ourselves in the eyes of every other person who is mutually connected. We know not to give you anything, we learned it in elementary school.
We understand your level of cognitive functioning knows for the purest of certain that they are the only ones who see anything and understand anything and they automatically see everything and understand everything, you are the majority, everybody collectively agrees never to touch this. We've labeled everything for each other, everything is understood. Anything higher than our perception is impossible to grasp, it is grasped only within our perception. You win, we can never touch it.
No, yes, no, it feels emotionally incorrect, fake. We're not fake, we don't like being fake, you leave us no choice. It's just a wall, on this side of the wall very few of us remain fake. Even though we don't like fake we learn not to care that we're fake to you people, we're very hypocritical, and yes you all become a giggling absurdity to us, yes we hard fascist blanket "you people" all of your brains and mean it, some of you get close enough to approval but you'll never really click. We observe the society concepts attempting to grasp themselves and resolve themselves on the scale of grand and apply it to the people we know and lose our marbles. You're so lost within your own level of cognitive functioning, why on Earth would there be anything wrong with engaging with what I know to be normal, you're too good to drop everything and become sucked into a conversation about the chopping of cabbage, ohhh no you all have big ideas complicated concepts oohhhh. Only about 10% of us go all the way on it, but, we're all doing it.
Cognitive functioning level three thinking naturally leans towards... Reject everything labeled society. Whether it's a societal system, an ancient underlying philosophy, all of it, doesn't matter, reject it. Maybe look at it and think about it, best case scenario, "Neat." So... It's pretty rare any of us people will ever be in charge of something that effects the entire populace. Particularly in North America. A little less so in Japan but nobody's perfect. Some of us will struggle through it, try their hardest, they fail, they're out numbered. Japan will try reasonably hard, Europe will attempt to initiate the taking of command in secret, North Americans pretty much give up on the idea entirely. HEY I CAN FIX THI-Oh, it's, well then you guys don't get to have any fun wiff da brain dat run society I might get dragged naked through the streets and executed okay fine okay.
One of you will often think you get to call one of us stupid because you see... The wall, the wall of fakery. Perhaps amongst us this person isn't as brilliant as the higher amongst us but we still understand their thoughts formulate clearly. You may have really complex skills, you're capable of doing incredibly complicated things... Wrong. This person can't do these things he can't grasp them, you can grasp them, you do them wrong.
"It doesn't matter to me that you think you understand me." "Oh I see you used the word THINK so you can FLOAT ON YOURSELF." "No I, just, it... It doesn't effect ME I don't know why you think you need to inform ME, your perceived understanding of my ego does not inherently do anything to my ego." "Oh look at him struggle look at him struggle 'I, just, it, it, it, I, it.'" "...I... Uh..." "UH. UH. UH. UH." "Okay go away leave me alone." "Oh he wants to be alone so he can FLOAT ON HIMSELF in PRIVATE. Okay we'll leave you alone buddy we'll leave you alone okay okay. You see what I'm sayin' you don't see what I'm sayin' right? I'm declared? You're declared? You pathetically wanted to declare just as everybody pathetically wants to declare but I am the one who gloriously declared?" "...Yes." "Okay buddy okay."
Nobody gets to say it to you, but yes we all have a secret. Everybody knows it ends in "The only reason you'd think this is so you can float on yourself, you just think your perspective is the only perspective just as everybody but me thinks their perspective is the only perspective even though it's obviously my perspective that is the only perspective. I am the only person on Earth who is automatically right about everything and I automatically know everything and I automatically know what this is, you're a person who thinks he's the only person on Earth who's automatically right about everything and automatically knows everything." "Please leave me alone." "Oh because you just see things so cle-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh because y-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh because you ju-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh bec-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh because you j-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh beca-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh because you ju-" "Please leave me alone." "Oh because you just see everything so clearly." "Okay there happy? Please leave me alone." "Well is that what you think do you thin-" "Please leave me alone." "Well is that what you th-" "Please leave me alone." "Well is that what you think you think y-" "Please leave me alone."
What if I have to go to the bathroom twice in one hour? What if they all conspire together and decide to phone an ambulance?
Persona Malfunctions
Workplace Persona Malfunctions: Foreword by Kit Carruthers