Source: The Ego
The ego is a symbol.
It is a collection of images and thoughts and conceptual models that represents us to ourselves. As a symbol, the ego associates itself with other symbols such as those of prestige, success, power, and pride. If we value prosperity, we might acquire an expensive car, not because we need it, but because it represents prosperity. The ego seeks fulfillment in the symbolic goods that it acquires, and it seeks immortality through the symbolic goods that it produces. The ego does not experience anything directly. It is in a sterile world of concepts and symbols.
The ego is a pattern.
It is our continuity. The ego says, “I am this type of person”. This continuity gives the ego a sense of security and stability, but it is an ungrounded sense, because there is actually constant change. The continuity is sustained through various means: Our memories are somewhat constant, because they refer to events that are frozen in history, and because we are unconsciously selective in remembering occurrences that support our concepts about ourselves. Reality actually exists in the constantly changing world of present events.
Our self image is relatively stable, because it is based on static ideas rather than on our ever changing feelings and thoughts. Reality actually exists in our constantly changing world of thoughts and feelings and other personal events.
Our habits suggest, through their repetitiveness, that we are indeed a particular kind of person. Reality actually exists in our constantly changing world of our current actions.
The ego is a sentry.
It analyses situations as threatening or beneficial, largely on the basis of the impact to its images of us, but also to the resources that allow it to operate in the human world. It reacts to insults, damage to its symbols, and challenges to its circumstances and habits, physical or mental. Threats to the body are managed largely by instinct such as the fight-or-flight impulse. If we are being mugged by an armed robber who wants our money, the ego needs to be monitored because its design may contain elements that would cause us to be less concerned with the body’s well-being than with the indignity that is being inflicted, and those elements can lead us to lash out with words or actions that would antagonize the robber and cause him or her to hurt us instead of simply taking our money.
