The Ego and Reality

[Mole]

We imagine we are just an ego, so we are only concerned whether we are positively or negatively affected by reality. This is the narcissistic position. Unfortunately reality is independent of our ego. It can come as a shock to realise I am not a snowflake at the centre of the universe.

However Dad calls me Princess and pays for everything I do, so it is only natural to see myself as a snowflake at the centre of the universe, beloved by everyone.

For millennia the Church taught we are the centre of the Universe, made in the image and likeness of God, and the beloved children of God. Galileo pointed out we are not the centre of the universe, and in fact we rotated around the Sun, and later we found we rotate around our galaxy, the Milky Way. And Galileo paid the price for telling us the truth. We are about as far from snowflakes as you can imagine.

 

[Lark]

It can come as a shock to realise I am not a snowflake at the centre of the universe.

To who? Who thinks they are a "snowflake at the centre of the universe"?

I have honestly met no one who has ever said this is what they thought, how many of them have you met Mole? When did you last meet someone who thought this?

Points if it was offline

 

[Mole]

To who? Who thinks they are a "snowflake at the centre of the universe"? I have honestly met no one who has ever said this is what they thought, how many of them have you met Mole? When did you last meet someone who thought this? Points if it was offline

A snowflake is the popular word for a narcissist. And we now have a culture of narcissism, click SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research, for The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lascb.

 

[cascadeco]

Well yes, culturally in the west we've tipped to kind of an extreme - an extreme of the importance of individuality, importance of sharing and being true to individual values/opinions, 'honoring our personal truths', and so on. Any extreme becomes almost a caricature/ has negatives, imo, and this is just the oscillation from the opposite extreme of over half a century ago - of repressing things, keeping things tight under a lid, importance of not spewing all of ones feelings, etc.

I mean to me it's self evident - all you have to do is look at facebook, instagram, all of the podcasts, trends of threads on forums, all of the blogs. Of course many of these things didn't even exist twenty years ago, but of the ones that did, there's definitely been a shift in tone and 'culture' -- of what people share and how it's done. Nowadays it's very important to Share Ones Opinion, and share all of the meaningless things we do every minute of every day. It's not even that this doesn't or didn't occur or wasn't 'natural' or healthy in previous times -- it's just in previous times this was done on a more personal, critical level - with chosen folks. Now it's broadcast to everyone, in many cases. So as a viewer/consumer, yeah, if you consume all of this, you're looking at thousands or millions of 'Me, Me, Me'! opinions, outpourings, stories, etc. And on a big scale, if surrounded by that, it's pretty easy to fall into the same sorts of behaviors -- not necessarily even in a conscious 'keeping up with the jones' way, but it can be more subtle -- just, well, in a 'Look at all of these other idiots doing this - my voice is just as important as theirs, so I'm going to chime in too.' (though in reality, not all opinions are worth anyone's time or worth giving weight to). And so on. So it's like... the conundrum of each of us being important and our life having meaning on an individual scale, and within a very small circle of folks who love us and vice versa - and in theory each of us being worthy of love and worthy of our voice being heard -- but at the same time, each of us being utterly unimportant and NOT mattering one bit. Because I can tell you, there are billions on this planet and the fact that I just voted or just cooked a really awesome homemade meal or feel X way about Y is utterly unimportant and it's not important or necessary that I share it with anyone. It's interesting. I think it can explain this cultural oscillation between extreme ego investment/sharing/placing importance on it, and devaluation and repression. Back and forth.