First Take On Poetry

City Life
Gloom and doom, gloom and doom.
Of what else bringeth the economic boom?
Nine to five;
live not to live, only to die.
How high away do you wish to fly?

Ego

What is ego?

Ego is what I would call our false self, the self which gives us a false sense of individual existence. I call it false because it is dependent on others to give us our sense of existence, our self. Because of this, the ego fears loneliness and the unknown, thus tries to dominate and control the external world(the other) as much as possible, to instill a sense of order around it, a sense of self where the individual would be comfortable in. The ego compulsively thinks in order to be assured of its future existence, rather than simply knowing itself and the present.

Manifestation of the ego happens at the time we were born. When we were born, we were born almost completely unaware of ourselves. We open our eyes for the first time and we see another's face. The first thing we are aware of is not of ourselves, but that of the other. This is how we grow, we become aware of others first, then through others, we become aware of ourselves. This awareness is a reflected awareness. When we were born, we become aware of our mother first. When she hugs and kisses us to show her love and appreciation for us, we feel good about ourselves, thus the birth of the ego. Through love and appreciation, we feel good, we feel valuable, we feel significance. The opposite happens to us when we feel nobody appreciates us, we feel sad, rejected and inferior. This too is the work of the ego. This is our false self because we do not know us, we only know what others think of us.

Living in society causes our ego to rapidly expand as we meet increasingly higher amounts of people as we grow. Everyone we meet contributes little by little to our ego. When we meet someone new we reflect on who they are and they reflect on who we are. People try to modify your ego to ensure you do not become a problem in society. They are not concerned about you, they are concerned about society. They are concerned that you should become an efficient and productive tool in society. They are trying to give you an ego that fits into society. They teach you morality to help your ego fit into society. If someone does not have certain moral values, then they are a menace to society. This is why they put people into prison, not because they have done anything wrong, but because they have egos which do not fit into society. They are troublemakers. They are misfits of society. One man kills somebody - he is labeled a murderer. The same man kills thousands in wartime - he is then labeled a hero. The society is not bothered by murder, but the murder should be committed for the society - then it is okay. Society is not bothered about morality. There is no morality. When someone speaks of morality, he says: "Murder is wrong.", but what he actually means is "I feel murder is wrong.". There are no absolute morals. When people speak of morality they are actually expressing their feelings about certain 'right' or 'wrong' actions.

Not only the society, other people can also create an ego that can be manipulated and controlled. Everyone needs a self, everyone is unaware of his self. When other people give him his false self and he is convinced that that is his self. A child comes home with his grades - if he came in first in his class, the family is happy, they praise him, offer him rewards, they hug and kiss him. They are strengthening his ego. If the same child comes home a failure, then nobody appreciates him, then the ego feels weak and shaken. Same applies to our interaction with people in everyday life, when we feel that by doing a certain thing or mixing with a certain group it makes us feel good about ourselves then we seek to make this the meaning of our lives, it becomes our 'identity'. And when we feel that others are a threat to this meaning of our lives, it is akin to threatening our survival itself. We band into camps of Us-Vs-Them or Self-Vs-Other and we begin to view them as a threat and hate them with all our hearts. We begin to stereotype and judge them('assessing the threat') every time we lay eyes upon them. Just as a person who has a phobia of spiders is afraid of them regardless of whether they are potentially life-threatening or not, we too tend to attribute properties of what we regard as a threat to everything else that shares the same behavioral characteristics. Through the ego other people are controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then do they appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners,
a code. Only then will they appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are. It is from others that we get an idea of who we are. This is why we like to own and divide things into mine and yours. When we are around things or people which are part of 'us', we feel more comfortable and at ease. That is why we fear loneliness - when we are alone there is nobody to watch us, to give us our identity, and we feel lost. Our ego is afraid of losing things which we are attached to, which are part of 'us', which has given us our 'identity'. Our ego is our false self, and that which is fake is plastic, artificial and dead. However, we are content with a plastic self. Why? Because with a dead self there are many conveniences. One which is dead never dies. It cannot - because it was never alive. The ego fears death, because it is never content, there is always something more it wants to do, something more that it wants to have, and there is! The ego can never be satisfied even if it has conquered the depths of the ocean, or the edge of the universe, because there is still one thing to master, the one place they never looked, the place so closest to us, the place that is within us, the place which holds our real self. Nobody can shape our real self. Our real self is nobody's business. We come with it. We were born with it.

Man is the ego. Without the ego, man would be either an animal or something that transcends man. More on the animal and the 'superman' next post...

Strength

Anger and fear are some of the basic negative emotions that we feel everyday. They are actually very closely related to each other. Fear is an emotion directed towards things that we perceive to be a threat to us that we want to eliminate, but it is usually out of our means to do so. Anger are emotions directed towards things that we perceive to be a threat but within our means to eliminate. Anger is a behavioral pattern designed to warn aggressors to stop their threatening behavior. These feelings are usually synonymous with hatred. There is only 1 thing in common here, that these emotions are only directed towards things which we view are a threat to us. Why do we feel they are a threat? It is because they make us feel weak, and we hate that, thus we show hostility and aggression towards those threats in order to appear strong, but the truth is this: Deep down inside is a extremely weak existence who uses appearances to cover up for their lack of strength.

There are many examples of these: People who go around picking fights with others, People who put on a brave front and seeks generally fearful experiences in order to portray their fearlessness to others, all these are forced fearlessness and false strength because the purpose of these actions are to express their strength to others to cover up for their own lack of weakness in themselves. People who seek to overcome their fears do so only because they fear in the first place; the same logic applies here as well: People who seek to portray a sense of strength in themselves only do so only because they are weak in the first place.

If you are truly unaffected by something, you are not obligated to act upon it. There is a difference between forcing yourself to not fear and not fearing. Take for example: You notice an ant, if you do not feel threatened by it, you will leave it alone, but if it crawls on your skin, then you feel threatened by it and attempt to kill it. In other words, if you are really strong, you do not feel that others are a threat because they are unworthy of your time and effort. This is how someone who is strong, powerful and fearless would act; this is the highest level of strength.

How Conscious Are You?

Anger, aggression, pride, grief, fear, hatred, apathy, lust, pleasure, these are examples of various emotions that we feel from time to time. Sometimes we might wonder why we feel such emotions, but usually we come to the conclusion that it is external factors that make us feel that way. However, contrary to popular belief, it is actually the workings of our own minds in reaction to those external factors. Sounds confusing? Well, first you must know that the mind consists of the conscious and the subconscious. Most of our behavior is controlled by our subconscious mind rather than our conscious mind. Most of our emotions are a result of the subconscious mind pulling the strings of the body. Emotions enhance our ability to evaluate our environment thus increasing our chances of survival. Without our conscious mind, we would be controlled completely by our subconscious mind; our genes or cells piloting us to their will, whatever their will is. Our conscious mind is what allows us free will. Life is no longer just simple fight or flight because of our consciousness. However, I can say with a great degree of confidence that, everyone safe for a handful of people do not actually use much of their consciousness. These people(myself included) allow themselves to be controlled by their emotions, giving in to workings of their subconsciousness. Because of that, they allow others(also controlled by their subconsciousness) to manipulate them, simply by playing on their emotions. Fear, one of the most commonly experienced emotions, is also one of the most commonly exploited ones. Other emotions, such as pleasure, also play a huge part in determining which decisions we make in our lives. However, not all emotions are the workings of the subconscious mind only, there exists emotions that are a result of conflict between the subconscious and conscious minds, and emotions that are from the conscious mind only.

There are 17 levels of consciousness as given by David R. Hawkins in his book Power vs Force. Most emotions classify into these different states of consciousness. From the lowest to the highest, it basically means how much you actually use your conscious mind. We usually experience few states of consciousness at once, and we might fluctuate between different levels at different parts of our lives.

Firstly, the lowest levels of consciousness. These are what I would call the levels of subconsciousness. If you are living in these states of consciousness then you are probably living subconsciously.

Shame - Shame is actually a result of the conflict between consciousness and subconsciousness, however it ends in the triumph of the subconsciousness over the consciousness. It is a state of self-hatred where people feel they have violated social values or standards imposed upon them by others. It basically means hating yourself because you fail to meet standards that others place on you. Most people are this level are contemplating suicide. They have concluded that the only possible happiness is by eliminating the feelings of displeasure that perpetuate their lives. It is the lowest of consciousness because it defies even the purpose that emotions are for, to enhance one's survival.

Guilt - Very similar to shame, but people who experience guilt usually feel that way because they they feel they violated self-imposed values or standards.

Apathy - Apathy is a state of indifference where an individual has an absence of interest or concern to certain aspects of emotional, social, or physical life. These are the ignorant people, people who only seek to experience self pleasure without a care for anything else in the world, sometimes even for their own personal welfare. Hardcore video gamers, drug addicts, smokers usually belong here.

Grief - Grief is a state of sadness and loss. This is where an individual mourns over a loss of something close or important to him and does nothing but that.

Fear - One of the most important survival tools. However, living in the state of fear basically means fearing too much such that it interferes with your ability to make decisions consciously.

Desire - This is a state of addiction and lust. The individual is capable of thinking consciously but he chooses to let his subconscious desires get the better of him, and sets his goals towards achieving these desires. Very similar to apathy, however it is different to apathy because the individual is actually capable of using his conscious mind.

Anger - This is a state of frustration. The individual blames others for his own weakness, then seeks to eliminate his source of frustrations. However this is a needed emotion for self-improvement, although the individual might be stuck in hatred.

Pride - This is a state of pleasure, however it is dependent on external factors for the pleasure so it is vulnerable. Think materialism or religious fundamentalism. Selfish love also goes here; people might think that their love is in fact selfless but it is not(refer to previous posts). Most people might perceive pleasure to be happiness and get stuck at this level. This is also a state of refusal to be humiliated, to think that the beliefs and abilities of the self is better than everyone else.

The following are mostly a result of the conflict between the conscious and subconscious mind, usually ending in the triumph of the consciousness over the subconsciousness.

Courage - This is a state of self-improvement. This is where one finally picks up courage to improve himself regardless of the subconscious emotions that he might be feeling. The individual begins to drift away from the subconscious, self-driven thinking, and starts to do things that goes against the subconsciousness. For example: helping others etc. Note: Courage and fearlessness are 2 different things, courage usually involves self-sacrifice for others, however fearlessness is self-sacrifice for self only, think of it as pride.

Neutrality - This is a state where the individual is going through a relaxed pace, or just getting by. He has nothing to prove, thus he gets along well with other people. The individual is taking care of his emotional needs, however he does not push himself too hard. There is room for self-improvement, however the individual is contend with himself thus he improves himself rather slowly.

Willingness - This is a state of determination in self-improvement. This is similar to courage but in this state simply improving or getting by is not enough, instead the individual strives for the best. This is where the consciousness starts to become disciplined and organized.

Acceptance - This is similar to anger, however the individual attributes problems to himself instead of others and starts to work towards improvement. This is a state where the individual understands and accepts things the way it is.

The following states are where the individual starts to reject most if not all of the subconscious emotions.

Reason - This is a state where the individual is capable of using the conscious mind to reason and to think clearly and rationally. When you reach this level, you become capable of using your reasoning abilities to their fullest extent. You begin to look at the world around you identify problems and start trying to change the world for the better.

Love - This is a state of selfless and unconditional love or compassion.

Joy - This is a state of true happiness. This is happiness from within, not dependent on any external factors.

Peace - This is a state of inner peace. There is no longer a need to worry for the future.

Enlightenment - This is the highest state of consciousness. This is where the individual begins to understand the workings of everything. This is where the individual is totally free from any fear or suffering. This is where the consciousness completely overthrows the subconscious emotions controlling the body. Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha is a very notable person that attained enlightenment.

Some of these levels of consciousness might overlap each other, however the general model can be seen. Do not misinterpret though, for I'm not advocating that our life should be spent trying to move up the consciousness ladder, nor am I advocating that this is a model of right and wrong, but this is just a model for self-reflection. Only by mastering your own emotions will you be able to stop getting manipulated by others or will you cease to experience suffering. For me, I'm stuck in levels of anger and pride, what about you? How conscious are you? What rules your body? Your subconscious emotions or YOU?