Mrs_C

Dear actualizers, I believe that the smartphone is a vital part of one's ego. (In more general terms I think objects and activites that imply a hightened frequency of control are objects and activities that the ego binds to itself.) With the smartphone I see it in the following way: A tool that is always available, easy to reach because it's in my pocket and omnipresent with all its apps it seems like it has already become an extension of my body. If it is an extension of my body it automatically is part of my ego because "I am ego". If I tell somebody that I dont feel respected or listened to due to the other person being busy with one's smartphone during a meeting or conversation this person easily feels offended. The ego feels offended. What are you observing here? People are looking at their egos basically all the time because they are looking onto their smartphone screens. I am wondering how you see the connection between the smartphone and the ego. Looking forward to your replies :-)

Thanks for the replies. I myself am not too concerned with radiation and I think I would like to see this topic more from a perspective of unconscious behaviour. If the smartphone is an extension of the ego, then it has the potential to reflect me, meaning that it reveals certain behaviours and ways of thinking and habits. I argue that people often fall into the trap of using their smartphones when certain behaviours don't want to be processed and lived through. I imagine someone feeling embarrassed in a social context, alone with oneself, bored. I actually believe those three emotions are the most prevalent to reach out to one's device. It's absolutely okay to this of course but its actual purpose being a handy tool will be undermined. Afterwards, the reason is obvious why the smartphone has been used: I couldn't bear my inner state. There is no need to blame the smartphone. Our points of attraction could be anything. I would like to consider it from the persepctive of that the smartphone is by far most unconsciously used material object of nowadays.

So now we have a great situation: The ego revealed itself completely. It is manifested through ones smartphone. It is ones flag to carry around perpetually. It is much easier to observe it this way. Ironically, that's what we basically do when we look at our screens, however, most of us are still looking THROUGH it instead of ON it. The question is: How could we use the smartphone so that it reflects ourselves instead of manipulating us into its world. I want it to reflect me instead of making me an unreflected user.

Dear Actualizers I'm calling out to you with this very first post of mine and I hope it is the proper sub forum. I am asking myself: Is the ego a necessary part of our lives and can we see beauty in it? For long, I have been blaming the ego for its lies and neediness. I saw it in others as I saw it in myself. The ego was bad to me, something to get rid of in order to reach lucid states of the mind and a whole sense of myself. Currently, I am inspired by Eckhart Tolle's book "A New Earth" in which he talks a lot about the ego. But again, I can hardly find any information on why the ego could be of value. It seems like the way to go is to abolish one's ego with all its painful thoughts and emotions and its habitual reactivity. A good thing I can in fact extract from that book is that it is important to recognize one's ego first instead of just blindly ignoring it. That would of course be foolish. So the ego acts like a mirror to ourselves through which we can recognize it and then adapt to our strongest bodily and mental pressures to react with kindness, compassion and acceptance or even not react to stay patient and observing. Now, there is still the question that I'm trying to answer: Can there be an end to the ego or is it a necessary part of our lives? I assume that the core of the ego does not only come with a pain body and a reactive surface but also with memories and even all things that we have learnt in our lives. I am even thinking that, since the ego connects us with those people who reflect our egos, loving relationships can only happen because of the ego. And I am not talking about the trick of infatuation but deeper love, surely not unconditional love though. It feels like people attract each other because of their ego characters. Yes, because ego is personality. It is my unique personality. So, why is it worth giving up? Where will I be when ego is gone? I am prepared to consciously go towards the ego's death but where will I be? This is certainly a future related question and it may be my ego who is asking it. Still: Where will I be? Allow me to bring this to an absolute: Will I be without personality, without memories, without knowledge? My brain exempted from ego is a brain exempted of conditioning, thus, exempted from neural activity. I am not asking if this is feasible but where I would be without the ego. I would like to introduce a healthy appraoch towards the ego. One that recognizes and is compassionate with it, one that sees the beauty in it. If I treat my ego as the little child of myself, then that somehow feels utterly right to me. It feels balanced and it makes me capable of dealing with this very shadow side of mine in a responsible way. The conditioning of the ego is my past, that mostly happened autonomously. Looking from a standpoint of the present moment I cannot change my past anymore so all I can do is accepting my ego as it is and learn anew through this integration. For the last two years, I have been working on a smartphone meditation game project called Smagotcha. Smagotcha is a little creature that seeks your attention and it wants to be accepted and seen by you. Smagotcha is a representation of your ego. So it will react accordingly depending on the progress of the player. I am at a point where I need some opinions so I can continue this project with more clarity. Looking forward to your replies :)! Mrs_C

I see. Thank you for your posts so far. It is the cause of all misery and because it is there is gives us a chance in every moment to be present. If there was no ego I can hardly imagine that we could distinguish between present and non-present. The ego is a chance to be present, isn't it?

I was thinking of this here: What makes us search may not be the beginning of our story. Since we are searching for something we are part of a beautiful transition. Within this beauty we all too often put focus on what we want to find. This may not be the end of our story. Just put focus to play. This way we will find more than we thought. Silence lies in between. And from there, music will arise. Silence can only be found within the noise Cheers Mrs_C

We can transcend people's problems by being compassionate with them. I think keyhole says good things: "If someone is self diagnosing themselves assume that they are probably correct or pretty close to figuring out what it is. You can even directly ask them why they think that they have that disorder if they openly discuss their mental health. You would have to have a discussion with them to determine the validity of their self diagnosis." @Farnaby: If you get triggered then see it as a chance for your own development. It triggers a problem of yourself. It doesn't seem to be about them, but about you. I would try to recognize this trigger point, then observe it, stay non-reactive as long as I need to. Then keep up the communcation and react with compassion. ... or we just get really really angry and give space to our emotions. That might be freeing! Mrs_C

Every word that I speak is a reflection of my memories, thoughts and ultimately my personality. Where I want to point at is "communication". Being still, non-communicative is one thing that is well aligned with the present moment. Once I speak though I cannot be free of my conditional past. Even the mere grammarly structures within a certain language carry the load of a collective ego. Unless I speak non-sense, then sense is ego. "This makes sense" is an expression of the ego, no matter which enlightened thought I just had. So, what about becoming friends with ones ego? Something feels not right when I WANT my ego to dissolve. It only dissolves in the moment when I become friends with it. Then ego and the present moment become one. Because wanting is ego. I can only surrender to it, recognize it and allow it to happen. That'S the very moment when it dissolves. But I don't need to camouflage its existence, nor do I need to say that the ego is bad. The ego is in the present moment and it vanishes there. I don't want to treat the ego like a hardware installation, more like a recodable software then. My ego is sure we're talking about the same thing.