Thoughts on “Ego Out”
by Miki SaxonA comment on Ego-merge by Peter Gluck asked for my thoughts on “ego out.” (Peter is a charming fan who says he translats many of my posts into Romanian for his newsletter Info Kappa. How’s that for a great ego trip?)
I googled “ego out” to be sure I understood the conversation and here is my two cents—which has absolutely no basis other than my own thoughts on the subject.
First, let’s differentiate between ego and self-esteem.
- Ego believes that it knows best and ignores any evidence to the contrary, let alone other people’s ideas/thoughts/beliefs.
- Self-esteem is the belief that one has value and can add value to one’s world. (Note: This kind of self-esteem has nothing to do with the kind promoted in the entitled mentality so prevalent today.)
Self-esteem is good and should be cultivated and nurtured.
Ego, as it lives inside your head, isn’t intrinsically bad, but its application to the rest of the world is bad.
So people say, ‘eliminate ego from the conversation’.
Nice thought, but it falls in the same realm as eliminating junk food and mandating daily exercise to control obesity. As any fool can tell you that just ain’t gonna happen.
What can be done? Let’s look at it a bit differently by equating
- ego to subjectivity; and
- ego-out to objectivity.
The first thing that happens with the word change is it eliminates the threat of being egoless—a concept most people cannot/won’t embrace.
Next, change focus and spend energy bulking up and strengthen objectivity.
Third, increase awareness, so that you are conscious of which view you are applying to [whatever]. That heightened awareness will help you keep your subjective/ego view inside your head where it belongs or to plainly state that your words/actions are subjective, not definitive or “right.”
In many cases you want to present your subjective view and in all cases you can have both. For example, Whistler’s Mother is considered brilliant by every yardstick and objectively I can appreciate that, but I have no subjective liking for it.
This blog is another good example. The ideas as well as the commentary on other people’s thoughts, articles, etc. are purely subjective, based on my MAP, i.e., my ego.
I have spent decades developing my objectivity and awareness in knowing which is which, so I have reason to believe it works.
I’ve also found that the stronger my objectivity gets the more it tempers my subjectivity.
And sometimes, I find that ego/subjectivity really adds to the conversation, as long as all parties listen objectively.
Sxc.hu photo credit to: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/582071
May 21st, 2010 at 11:18 am
I am very grateful to Miki Saxon for taking in consideration my Ego-Out idea and writing a bright essay about it.
Equilibrium and/or harmony of subjective/objective is fundamental in may aspects of profession and life.
However, I have a special understanding of Ego-Out and have-
in a way, patented this word.
My definition is at the Unwords Dictionary:
Definition of ego-out
1. (n.) The quantity of information, knowledge and wisdom lost by the death of an individual.
Origins: Peter Gluck of Cluj, Romania. Editor of Info Kappa
I came to this idea after reading many biographies of famous and less famous people – one thing they have in common- is that they all have died. Some special cases as Mozart and Mendelssohn who have died very prematurely have generated the idea that when somebody dies, a treasure is lost. The part of his Ego, Self, Personality that is going out is a loss for Mankind, the gal’s or guy’s experience is lost. Irreversibly lost.
Therefore it is necessary to reduce this ego-out to the minimum. Perhaps blogging is one of the possibilities. Old people with great experience have, in my opinion the human obligation to tell to the future generations what they know.
This is my reason to write a newsletter re websearch and real life problem solving.
Reducing go-out has to become a science, a tradition. a kind of good practice. One of the extra reasons is that I cannot see proofs for Flynn Effect. What do you think?
May 22nd, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Peter, thank you for taking time to set me straight. My quick search of ‘ego-out’ missed the whole point of your definition and my post reflected that.
More effort is being made to collect acquired wisdom form those deemed “of value,” but not so much in a general.
The main problem, as I see it, in capturing the wisdom held by everyday people is that it often takes death-sight (the hindsight that comes when a person dies) by the younger generations in that person’s sphere of influence to recognize the wisdom, but by then it is too late. This is especially true in the US, where there is less respect for the wisdom that can only be gained by experience.
Companies, too, lose wisdom, not to mention knowledge, when their senior people retire, leave or are laid off; knowledge repositories are an effort to mitigate that.
I looked up Flynn Effect and don’t really know enough to intelligently comment. Personally, I think the human race has been breeding down for decades, in direct opposition to the idea of survival of the fittest, but that is strictly my own gut feeling and has no standing in the real world.