The Ego and the Psyche - Introduction
The word “ego” gets so bandied about, carrying so many meanings—some of them vague, some very specific—that I confess I’m still not completely sure what my (or anyone’s) ego is. And I may never be. Sigmund Freud first defined, or attempted to define the concept in his efforts to understand the structure of the psyche—a mission that, all by itself, is really quite profound. And what, exactly, is the psyche? Again, another fairly slippery, hard-to-get-a-handle-on concept.
I’ve discovered that I do better trying to come up with my own ideas in this realm than try to fit my experience into someone else’s interpretation, but just the fact that Freud conceived the psyche as having a structure is fascinating to me. Because for me—and I might not be totally alone in this—my psyche, as I dimly comprehended it before turning my attention to it, seemed to be more along the lines of something like a chrysalis, which is basically a bag of undifferentiated cells. When I thought about my psyche, I thought of it as the part of me that thought thoughts and felt feelings and ran the constant ticker tape of commentary through my inner ear. This all seemed to emanate inside my head, which felt pretty black-boxy. It appeared, at first, that all of these things welled up from some intangible place in the center of my brain, like a burbling spring, and then circulated inside my skull for awhile before turning into something more permanent like a memory, or leaf skeleton.
But then, of course, I noticed that my heart was involved in my thoughts and feelings, and so was, in fact, my entire body. No getting around that, really. Then, too, I had inexplicable experiences that defied the notions, for me, that my consciousness was confined to my body (and brain), and that it was simply an epiphenomenon, a side-effect of a complex neurological system. I began to think that my psyche was an entity that was distinct from but somehow intimately connected to my body and brain. And once that occurred to me, I had to decide what I thought it was. Did it have some kind of anatomy? Who and what are the voices inside my head? Because all of us, whether we’re crazy or not, hear voices. We’ve got chatter going in our minds pretty much every minute of every waking hour. It’s called the “stream of consciousness.” Which is really an interesting phrase when you think about it.
For a long time, I assumed that each “voice” speaking in the first person inside my head came from the same source. But several years of adversity and pain pushed me to study metaphysical topics even more closely than I usually did. And I began to believe that there are probably at least two “I’s” who speak to me: one that I began to think of as my True Self, Soul, Psyche, or Inner Self—the one connected to the realm of probabilities, one that wasn’t physical but was the ultimate source of my physical existence. The other seemed to fit the concept that I was developing of the ego.
The ego voice, at first, was a lot louder. A lot! And for awhile, it drowned out the other voice. But by taking the time and being patient and still, I eventually began to hear that other voice. And what a lovely voice it is! It’s compassionate, insightful, wise, loving, and detached from any particular outcome. This last I’ve come to believe is the key to happiness, or at least, inner peace. Which might be the same thing. Interestingly enough, even the concept of happiness came under scrutiny during this period. I think the ego has one definition, and our inner self another.
In my post, “The Amnesiac Cartographer: Orienteering Training for the Human Soul,” I briefly discussed some of my concepts involving the ego and the soul. I’ll be exploring these issues in more depth in subsequent posts as it seems to me that the present state of the ego is at the root of a great deal of human suffering, as many others believe as well—and it doesn’t have to be this way. I find it intriguing to get other people’s insights on this mysterious subject—it helps to stimulate my own thinking—so I hope that my musings might do the same for other like-minded souls. Despite not having a comments section set up, I am always interested in hearing other people’s views, so if anyone has any thoughts on this topic they’d like to share, please feel free to e-mail me at keswickhouse@earthlink.net.
Above: A trio of roses in our garden.
Monday, September 6, 2010