How does one loose ego. - Revolver (2005) Discussion

[–] 14 years ago

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In my personal opinion, you can't loose the ego since it is practically the source of desire. All you can hope for is that you can balance it out with reason. Before you ask me more, you might want to read this post first:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365686/board/flat/149886523?d=156667642#1 56667642

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

That's very interesting. Could you give me a rough idea of what you did during this period and what you experienced? (By Private Message if you want to keep it between us)

Basically the drooling vegetable in my imagination would just be the physical body running on instinct. I imagine the consciousness is more like we would imagine a tree's. It's neither content nor discontent, it just is, living completely in the moment, desiring nothing. But that's just me imagining, of course.

I understand your basic stand and I share the sentiment if not the reasoning. To my mind there is no such thing as responsibility, no one is responsible to anyone or anything. Paradoxically I could say I take responsibility for my choices by denying the existence of responsibility.

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[–] Zeef 14 years ago

Someone i know once described the human ego as nature's way of making us care about ourselves, our animal instincts of self preservation, enhanced with the results of our psyche's evolution on this part.

You can't "turn off" the instinct part but you can find ways to bypass the flaws of our psyche, most notably by distancing yourself from materialistic behavior and widening your perspectives. Loads of cults and some religions offer this, a way to true happiness.

I can't help but wonder how long it will take us to evolve past these mental boundaries, and how much good it would do the world if only 50% of us would start thinking about other people instead of only themselves...

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

People do think about other people instead of only themselves.

Imagine a person waking up naked in a dungeon with one leg shackled to the floor and in front of that person is a saw and a big oven. Inside the oven is stuffed another person and after a certain time period the oven will start at low heat and the person inside will die slowly and extremely painfully. The only way for the first person to get to the oven is to saw their foot off and bleed to death.

Some people wouldn't care the least about the other person. Some would saw off their foot to turn off the oven even if the person was a stranger. Many would saw off their foot only if the other person was someone they already cared about. Many wouldn't saw off their foot but would feel terrible about it and regret their decision.

But the truth is no matter what the first person does it's because of ego. Because the truth is no choice is the correct one because neither person matters. Their egos disagree because that's what egos do.

That's my current perspective of humanity, anyway.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

No problem! I understand it's difficult to describe a sense of being.

What I mean by "neither person matters" is that nothing matters, importance is a delusion, if nothing had ever existed then nothing would exist. Nothing is perfect hence nothing is imperfect. There is no right or wrong. Nothing should or should not be. Nothing must or must not be.

In short, it doesn't matter what we want. You could be God Almighty and it still wouldn't matter what you wanted.

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[–] StroudClife 14 years ago

Ego-Death can occur when having a very profound trip on LSD or Mescaline.

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[–] pai-dallaz 14 years ago

While I dont really want to call you a liar key_secret, I have a hard time believing you can call yourself enlightened. A person enlightened would never refer to him/herself as enlightened, that like someone claiming that their God(Christian or otherwise), it just reeks of......ego.
I personally feel that my ego really creeps up when I feel the need to explain to people that Im not really smart, a nice guy, good boyfriend, someone special, etc. Im really trying to explain something to someone that doesnt even matter. Why would I care what that persons opinion of me is, I mean its the ego that drives me, because Im an approval junkie.
I doubt the first Buddha walked around calling himself enlightened, he probalby just walked around talking to people, and they followed him naturally.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

key_secret, simply referring to yourself as enlightened and others as egoists and claiming they cannot understand something you don't even want to attempt to sum up isn't leading this conversation anywhere.

If you really are enlightened then by definition we are misguided compared to you. Doubts and questions are then only to be expected, right?

So would you mind sharing your definition of the term "ego"?

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[–] platonic567 13 years ago

key_secret probably has a very large ego since he feels the need to claim things such as being enlightned in imdb boards.

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[–] asortofdream 12 years ago

"A person enlightened would never refer to him/herself as enlightened, that like someone claiming that their God(Christian or otherwise), it just reeks of......ego."

This reminds me of a saying in Buddhism: "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. Do not hang on."

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] raf-33 14 years ago

We have egos to serve a purpose. If you strip away layers of your psyche that are there for a purpose then you may also lose some of your humanity. I think matt_shade already may have.

What's the general moral in almost every massive-budget sci-fi or action movie made? It's that the parts of us that make us ugly are also that which makes us beautiful - that humans are flawed, but only because we are flawed can we be human.

If you take away your ability to receive pleasure, you may aswell do away with desires, and without desires we are one step closer to robots.

Y'all may like the movie, Equilibrium.

peace.

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground, try this sig with spinach!

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

We have egos to serve a purpose. If you strip away layers of your psyche that are there for a purpose then you may also lose some of your humanity. I think matt_shade already may have.

LOL Possibly. But don't make the mistake that because I say purpose and beings' desires don't matter that I automatically don't care about my fellow beings. I can run into a burning building to help another person irrespective of my conclusion that it doesn't matter whether the two of us make it out alive or not.

In other words, just because I don't think like you doesn't necessarily mean I'm less human. But I understand your reaction. From your point of view, I sound like a coldhearted nihilist out to intellectually poison everyone. But from my point of view, by sharing my conclusions I've slapped your ego in the face and you're soothing it with words like 'purpose', 'ugly', 'beautiful' and 'flawed'. This is not criticism against you, standing up for your sense of self-worth is a perfectly understandable reflex and the very basis of the use of 'insults'. In a sense, I have in fact insulted you and you have insulted me back. But in another sense, what we have here is an intellectual stalemate:

matt_shade "I don't think we're important."
raf-33: "I think we are."

If you take away your ability to receive pleasure, you may aswell do away with desires, and without desires we are one step closer to robots.

Absolutely, in fact I would say not just one step closer but robots full stop (drooling vegetable, remember?). But that doesn't change the central question, are we (all sentient beings) important or do we just tell ourselves that since it's wholly impractical to do otherwise?

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[–] Hebetude108 14 years ago

"We have egos to serve a purpose. If you strip away layers of your psyche that are there for a purpose then you may also lose some of your humanity. I think matt_shade already may have."

I don't know the exact excerpt or who made the theory but it's along the lines of "Lying is beneficial to surviving as it can help you gain without loss, therefore lying is beneficial. If lying is beneficial then it is inherently beneficial to be able to detect lies so as to not get things taken away without anything returned. If lying is beneficial yet we don't wish to be caught in a lie, then it is possible that it is evolutionarily beneficial to lie to ourselves."

Some people like to strip away such parts of their humanity.

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[–] matt_shade 14 years ago

Indeed. "Philosophy - the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics." Those philosophers, they're such an inhuman bunch, march them all into the gas chambers and all will be right with the world. j/k

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[–] Hebetude108 14 years ago

Definitely man, they're almost as bad as those dang atheists, runnin' around stabbin babies and whatnot. *shakes fist*

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] minimontana 10 years ago

you dont understand what an ego is obviously

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[–] ManFromSanFernando 13 years ago

The problem with that is-helping others often quickly turns into hurting them,since it is so difficult to put yourself into other peoples shoes and thus actually address their problems.
A good example is the social engineering efforts of the 50s and 60s led by Le Corbusier to improve city lving for the poor by giving them what wealthy suburban white people thought was good-green space, rational grid planning, designed to accommodate private transport, and high density residential blocks to conserve nature for the poor- and having these plans turn into what came to be the projects, where the green spaces meant to give the poor nature came to be large inhuman spaces where crime could occur w/o watching eyes, high density apartments blocks w/ huge hallways w/o windows turned into the perfect alleyways for criminals, and the grid turned into an oppressive force.
It is very difficult to help others in a class system where the upper classes truly don't understand the problems of the lower ones b/c if they truly did they would abolish the class division- which would lead to a world w/o much of what we perceive to be good or beautiful, but more egalitarian.

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[–] pugnaciousboxer-1 14 years ago

It seems to me you're ascribing to a new-age definition of "enlightenment". What is enlightenment? Why even mention it? It seems pretty narcissistic. There's a reason why Buddhists don't overtly claim they are enlightened.

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[–] clean_plastic_child 14 years ago

Trying studying Alan Watts. Look him up on youtube. Look up "self" or "ego" along with his name in the search.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] ndcmarketing 14 years ago

I hope you're not getting beat up too much after your genuine question. I made my own egoic discovery in the middle of one of Eckhart Tolle's books (A new earth: awakening to your life's purpose. ) Completely losing one's ego can be a bit of a task and borderline unneccessary unless you're planning on being a monk or the next guru. The goal should be a realization of the egoic component in all of us and the understanding that your spiritual self exists outside the ego and doesn't require as many worldly things (the ego does pretend to run the show). Being a fan of worldly things and successes, I haven't transcended to the point that these things don't matter. My enhanced but still limited understanding of all the things floating inside and outside of my head has given me peace and understanding of many pleasureable and painful topics. So remember, its more of a journey than it is a destination.

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[–] TheDiceDude 13 years ago

well put!

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[–] Chiffmonkey 13 years ago

From what I can tell the only way to lose ego is on the brink of suicide.

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[–] sonofberzerk 13 years ago

Psychedelics in large doses can cause "ego-death" wherein everything is fresh or brand new to you.
A perspective shift, if you will.
High doses of LSD, ayahuasca or DMT.
The only problem is that it can cause you to become fearful instead of just embracing it.

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[–] feather_jammed_gears 13 years ago

citation needed.

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[–] leonie_zylstra 13 years ago

My perception is that Jake had practised, and learned the basics of overcoming his ego in solitary. Then for the next few years, he had to put his learnings to the test. That's why they left him in solitary, because he wasn't ready yet.
I don't think the question is, How do we lose our ego", but rather "How can we control our ego, without it controlling us?"

It doesn't matter what external ego's think of you (remember Mr. D begged jake to fear him)
The scene in Mr. 'D's bedroom, when Jake was 'at war' with the voices in his head kinda show's you an anology of the effect of T.V, cartoon, music etc that feed your ego...IF you listen to them, and allow them to take control, or you can listen to the quieter voice, by either meditation or prayer ("solitary"), and then put that learning to the test.
For Christians, it's not right to just pray to God, and ask for forgiveness, and then go out the next day, commit the same sins, and repetitively ask for forgiveness.
If you were a doctor, you wouldn't go to school for 7 odd years, learning how to save people's lives then become a 'serial killer'...Ok, that last one leave's room for thought;)....just my 2 cents worth

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] rawsir 13 years ago

Also dont forget that Jake is the exception to the rule. Basically he and Sorter are the only ones that see any real change in themselves. The rest of the ego driven people remain that or die. You truly never loose ego. Its been said before you control it.

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