Up to now I’ve been beating up on the ego a lot. But like all abstractions, it is necessary and non-arbitrary to be who you are with your ego. This dawned on me that perhaps there needs to be another way to talk about it, and that’s when I realized the best way to describe the Ego is as a tool (like any other abstraction). And that tool needs to be sharpened and exercised, just like a knife or your body.
The Ego is not bad in and of itself. Achieving Ego death is not a way to escape the Ego, it’s away to become aware of it so that you can use it to actualize. But like many truths that hang together, you can’t be rid of the ego altogether lest a whole host of other things that help you satisfy your desires go away as well.
The Ego needs to be cared for. Like the body, it should be given a healthy diet, plenty of exercise, and made sure that it doesn’t get fat, lethargic, or purposeless. Like a knife, it should be sharpened, polished, and kept in a place that is easy to access in a moment’s notice. It is a vehicle, an armor, and a weapon.
If the Ego gets out of practice, it will become full of itself, or defeated, or dulled. It may become bent or malformed, hindering its ability to adapt to new challenges. It will no longer be a useful tool.
When the Ego is honed to fulfill its purpose, it is one of the most powerful abstractions for actualization that exist. We should not be ashamed of it, or try to escape it. We should use it.
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