Why is the ego so tuned for self-destructive patterns?

[TheAvatarState]

6 hours ago, tsuki said:

There is no such thing as deliberate self-destruction. There is only lack of self-knowledge that leads to bad decision making. Ignorance, if not addressed, can turn into malicious desperation that seeks relief in destruction of others to justify itself, but it has to be reinforced through years of self-neglect. The ego is not evil. Evil does not exist.

I agree, please allow me to restate. I wasn't saying that the ego was "evil." The context I had was that Ignorance is the default mode for most of society, and because of this, the ways in which the ego tries to cope with trauma are allowed to fester and become self-destructive. Suicides and drug overdoses are at an all-time high in the USA, to the point that life expectancy has declined for 3 years in a row. So this "natural pull towards self destruction" that I mentioned is only applicable in a low-consciousness society. No one is taught these things. I think part of the reason why this problem is getting worse is #1: people's economic situations have been steadily declining, and #2: the "appropriate" escapes and distractions are much more addictive and dire than they ever have been in human history. A low-consciousness society has found ways to "game" the ego, which itself is not "evil." That's what I was trying to reflect on, and gain a deeper understanding of.

I appreciate you point about the trauma that newborns experience. Collectively, we are blind to it. I remember a riveting account of someone who went to Stan Grof's holotropic breathwork workshop. During that experience, he was transported to the moment of his birth, and was able to trace his current trauma (at age 40!) back to that moment. Only then could he begin the healing process. We can carry seemingly innocent incidents (to others at the time) throughout our entire life, and be totally unconscious of it. Pretty wild...

[Shadowraix]

From an evolutionary pov, we advance really fast and perhaps the egoic mechanisms haven't caught up very well to our current way of living. 

Such advancements rolling forward with no regard to how prepared we are to these ways of life. 

[Raw Nature]

I disagree @Shadowraix , its purely cultural and I'd be able to share the case as to why. Competitive hierarchy which subordinates the masses to a mere consumer generates a negative feedback loop between products produced and the effect this has on raising consciousness.

[Raw Nature]

Think of the Native Indians, they're the perfect example of how relative to our ancestors we are the UNENLIGHTENED. So when we look at culture then we need to see dysgenics relative to its effects on consciousness and its manifestation. We are the eyes of the universe, every species is, and we contribute to how much or how little the universe sees of itself.

[Raw Nature]

We’ve become so obsessed with matter and its manipulation now to the point where we can no longer see the forest for the trees.

[Raw Nature]

Once you @Shadowraix  realise its like an existential autism as well, you know what the cognitive problem is.

See that's what most people including most in the psychological DSM community suffer from, existential autism, analogously they have the same existential handicap as someone with autism who has a social handicap.

That's literally how I think it should be viewed now.

[tsuki]

16 hours ago, TheAvatarState said:

I agree, please allow me to restate. I wasn't saying that the ego was "evil." The context I had was that Ignorance is the default mode for most of society, and because of this, the ways in which the ego tries to cope with trauma are allowed to fester and become self-destructive. Suicides and drug overdoses are at an all-time high in the USA, to the point that life expectancy has declined for 3 years in a row. So this "natural pull towards self destruction" that I mentioned is only applicable in a low-consciousness society. No one is taught these things. I think part of the reason why this problem is getting worse is #1: people's economic situations have been steadily declining, and #2: the "appropriate" escapes and distractions are much more addictive and dire than they ever have been in human history. A low-consciousness society has found ways to "game" the ego, which itself is not "evil." That's what I was trying to reflect on, and gain a deeper understanding of.

Yes, I believe that these observations are valid. It is much easier to destroy ourselves nowadays because the technology is much more advanced. Technology is a lever that multiplies our capabilities, but if the intent to use it is unwise, then it creates all sorts of problems. Some say that this is what happens when the rate of technological growth is greater than the rate of cultural growth. I don't view this problem in a linear way like that.

Spiral dynamics is a crisis-driven model and I believe that the mass destruction of environment and mental health is one of them. It resembles the shock that needs to happen for a stage orange ego to evolve into green. I believe that the solution to this problem does not lie in more technological development. Stage green is a very strange stage because it had collected a massive shadow and the only way to proceed is to backtrack, acknowledge, and heal it. I believe that this is the only way for us that is predicted with this model.

16 hours ago, TheAvatarState said:

I appreciate you point about the trauma that newborns experience. Collectively, we are blind to it. I remember a riveting account of someone who went to Stan Grof's holotropic breathwork workshop. During that experience, he was transported to the moment of his birth, and was able to trace his current trauma (at age 40!) back to that moment. Only then could he begin the healing process. We can carry seemingly innocent incidents (to others at the time) throughout our entire life, and be totally unconscious of it. Pretty wild...

During the first couple's therapy session, I was confronted with my shadow regarding women.
It traced all the way back to my early childhood and to my relationship with my mother. I'm still healing it.

Edited February 12, 2020 by tsuki

[Shadowraix]

@Raw Nature you're saying the same thing are you not? Case in point: we are not designed or adapted for these ways of life. 

Culture is just a reflection of this. Any provided problem to how we live is just more evidence to how unsuitable we are to it. 

This is all new territory we certainly have not had a chance to evolve into. And we never will. The landscape changes too fast. This is why we can't wait on evolution. We must change the culture and landscape and ourselves to suit us. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Shadowraix

[SickLuv]

On 09/02/2020 at 11:23 PM, TheAvatarState said:

@Joshi3 @Pacific Sage    thank you for the response. I understand and agree with what you said, but that wasn't quite what I was getting at. 

There are natural mechanisms in place, due to the very nature of having an ego. A rat, if given a supply of opiates in a cage, will drink itself to death. That wasn't programming through experience. The ego will ignore self-preservation in exchange for short-term pleasure. The ego is a deeply flawed system. 

To go back to your point, Johnny upon realizing the flaw in his programming, namely lack of self-worth, will still continue to push away others despite the knowledge of this act fueling his depression. Do you think smokers and heroin addicts don't KNOW it's not bad for them? Of course they do! But the ego will perpetuate the self-destruction unless through radical change and sheer force of will. 

Perhaps it's because the ego evolved for physical flight or fight threats, and in modern society this is mostly no longer an issue. The average person now days can float through life without ever fearing for their physical safety. There are no tigers here! 

This egoic system is completely dysfunctional for modern day life, is my point. I know we wouldn't be here in the first place without it, but... It just sucks knowing I am my own worst enemy. And everyone has to suffer for it.

What is needed is EGO education from a young age. The worst dysfunctions of this natural system in all of us can be worked around if understood and integrated. The nature of addiction. The pitfalls and traps, and their root causes. Everything I've only recently come to understand, would have saved me from years of suffering and self-destructive loops. And EVEN WITH this knowledge of how it works, I'm still fucking struggling because of how deeply imbedded the neural pathways are. 

destructive and good is relative.
it's all sand castle. When you stir on the good, you're close to the bad.

forget about good or bad completely, like erase it from your mind.

fapping 10 times a day is not more stupid than dying from cancer.

there is no good or bad, litteraly, it's a jump off the cliff realisation.

so how can you expect the ego to be self destructive, where there is no destruction and no construction ?

your ego direction change, to makes you learn, improve, increase your survival and potential pleasure.
then context and life conditionning will play all of the rest
 

many animals drug themself, is that because of their dysfunctional society or their ego that has been hijacked ? hum

it just that, I smoke weed everyday, but guess what, when I was in a space where I was aware I couldn't smoke for a week, I did it.

It was borring but not hard to not do it, in fact, I had a good experience being clean.

if there was tiger, of course I wouldn't bet on using weed, but maybe I would try to find some herbal to beat him up.

it's all about context, context, context.
 

[TheAvatarState]

8 minutes ago, SickLuv said:

it just that, I smoke weed everyday, but guess what, when I was in a space where I was aware I couldn't smoke for a week, I did it.

It was borring but not hard to not do it, in fact, I had a good experience being clean.

Try one year. You'd have a very different outlook. You'd go through hell to realize that daily cannabis use doesn't actually serve you. 

I understand there's no good and bad in the absolute sense. But in this relative domain, the context I'm using is human suffering. The ego isn't evil... What I was trying to communicate and reflect on was that it becomes dysfunctional, with respect to your health, if given certain inputs. And it perpetuates those patterns because that part of the ego can't differentiate between good and bad. 

[SickLuv]

some people smoke to be a part of a group, having power to create an input context to stand in social hierachy. ( not my case, or maybe it is. )

surviving is suffering.

I m not sure we can stop the wheel of wanting to survive, if you do so, there is the counter side of it, not wanting to survive, makes everything "shallow".

 

my genetic or whatever I appreciate the pumping effect, and coffee makes me sick for instance ( as alcohol ),

I did stop 6 months last year.

was very meditative, but life was missing the spice.

I have absolutely no monney from job ( thanks my country welfare so far , but there is downside to it ) ( because I value more my time and my direct pleasure on a daily basic ), and no job, my CONTEXT right now makes me smoke weed, and all addictions don't exist.

I say everything is context, conditionning, genetic, biology. ( big points )

no one never choose to be addicted or not addicted.

 

in fact that's more easy to see it that way, there is no free will, all ideas of free will is an illusion even when you stop thinking.

because determinism is absolute truth, but the thing is, you'll never ever grasp "determinism" with your own mind, so you're all life will be lived with the feeling of free will.

but there is no chooser, all choice and feeling are already made or coming from the past experiences.

for me it just stems to breathing, when I m writting, it because I feel it, nothing more, nothing to even know more the world. Why ? to maximise my pleasure ? Maybe, what does that means ? Answering my self . . . for my self.

sounds arrogant, there is nothing to know, if you "know more" it's only a delusion.

all context creates cons/good.

there is no path to take, no goal to reach, it's a road all the way.

 

as far as the relative goes, weed push me up, not down, but could be a total bias. But even if I chose to stop, other bad or good thing will happen, but good and bad are relative, chasing experience is the best way to not have any experience.

if you ask me why I smoke, I can speech for hours, reality is, I smoke for the same reason I choose to breath.

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by SickLuv