You’ve succeeded in locking up the conclusion in the definition. FWIW, the need/want issue would seem to be an attempt to provide a gradation of human activity based on perceived importance. Other than basic survival activities, need/want is an arbitrary definition.
Playing with the definitions is interesting, but it’s a bit to one side of a discussion of ego. Perhaps it is a separate thread where the definitions could help us decide when there is too much of “ME” or the point at which ego is in balance.
The Buddhist concept of “getting rid of the Ego” can also be read as “getting rid of self importance.”
If we use the words “need” and “want” in a hierarchy then the person who says, “I need a television,†expresses the importance of having a television. Saying, “I want a television,†expresses less importance.
“I want to eat,†is less intense than, “I need to eat.â€
The person who has a very high sense of their self-importance expresses everything as a need. “I need you to take care of this for me,†expresses that I am more important that you. You should take care of this because I need it. I am important.
A person with a high sense of self-importance thinks, my preferences are more important than your preferences, they are NEEDS.
Yet Buddhism cannot be separated from history and geography. The concept of duty still plays a role in the oriental perspective. The person with no needs, no wants, and no personal preferences can fulfill his or her duty unencumbered.
In the west we seek to cultivate mature self-direction. The great individual is not the one who unquestioningly follows duty. It is wise self-selection of action. I choose what I will do. The great individual makes great choices. He or she has wise preferences.
Very good. This trump’s the need to define need -vs- want. It keep’s us from having to explain how our wants are other people’s needs.
I would add a little to this. Yes, duty. But not necessarily duty to others, duty to self. I cannot see or act directly (wisely) to the extent that I am caught up in self-important precepts. (your reference to personal preferences) Even in the West our wisest people seem to be those with little ego, which may be why our politics looks like it does.
xanderman
Well spoken…
With the stark differwnce between eastern and western pjilosophy, can we ever hope to find a universal agreement for all humanity?
Your ego is who you are and when you are ready to die, you lose this as long as you live on a survival level you will always carry an ego as an essential way to live. But when you let this go your ego dies because slowly your dreams die and this is what it is to be without an ego it is to let your dreams die and people hold on to their dreams more than they care about themsleves because dreams are the hardest things to let go.
Xanderman wrote about ‘getting rid of self importance’.
I like this idea. I have gradually developed a sense, through experience, that many of my actions have been connected to upholding/ protecting my own (fragile) self importance. Alongside this realisation I have felt that these actions are not in my self interest, and that I would really like to do things differently.
An example of this unwanted behaviour would be obsessing (along with my peers) about what grade of philosophy degree I could get rather than enjoying the subject for it’s own sake. I became so hijacked by this competitive thinking that after my postgraduate studies I didn’t do any philosophy again for ten years. I avoided it like the plague. If I wasn’t going to be the very best, then I wouldn’t do it at all.
Over the years, what I call my ‘ego’ has been punishing me and telling me that I am crap because I haven’t written a ground breaking philosophy paper. I was in the position of someone who wouldn’t play the game in case they didn’t win. I know many people who won’t open themselves to criticism in this way, thinking that if they don’t try to do anything, then they won’t have to suffer the failure.
Rightly, or wrongly, it seems to me that this is a problem of uncontrolled ego, and it is very destructive for the individual concerned. This is why I sometimes describe the ego as a ‘false friend’ for his attentions are double edged. They seem protective, but maybe that is not in our interests. Maybe we should get out there and do something for the sake of it, and not just for the sake of ME.
I am open to questioning this view, although I have some confidence that there is value in what I am saying.
yes. recently i have definitely become obsessed with the need to grab at everything at once, in some kind of attempt to avoid missing out on experiences. I become stressed when there are too many books for me to read, films for me to see etc. It’s easy to set goals which we have no chance of reaching, hence the ego is not fulfilled. It’s possible to spend so much time thinking about what we want, how to get it, and we often fail to achieve our goals that the joy of experience itself is ignored. Every failure seems monumental because it represents the gulf between our desires and reality.
My answer is to reduce to emphasis on the self-reflective, introspective part of the ego, to stop evaluating myself constantly in terms of success and failure. This should allow us to fully apppreciate experience itself as it flows past, for all the beauty and pleasure in the world, without thinking about what we are missing out on or how we appear to the world. how to achieve this I’m not so sure.
The answer is: Yes we can escape our ego. People are mentioning Buddhism and how it advocates the need to rid yourself of it, how it is the driving force behind what you WANT not what you need, and all the things that can be absorbed through a little bit of reading. You are defiantely brushing the surface of it but it goes much deeper then anything I’ve read here so far.
To rid yourself of it requires much more then simple discussion. Good Luck
Yes, being objective can definately help us discard the chains of emotion and don the robe of enlightenment. However, I do feel that one must be selfish at first. Postively selfish with the goal to prepare the self to help others. Honesty is a huge part of this. Selfishness turns negative when greed grabs hold of us. If your idea of a healthy self is one who cooperates with the greater good, then I suppose greed would actually be the opposite of selfishness. Greed turns into self-destructiveness. It all depends on your moral development of course.
Build and sharpen your blade first, if it is to rend the flesh of confusion. If you travel towards enlightenment while your blade is left cold in its scabbard, rusting, corroding, you will be ill-equipped to handle the dangers of this chaotic world.
FWIW, the need/want issue would seem to be an attempt to provide a gradation of human activity based on perceived importance. Other than basic survival activities, need/want is an arbitrary definition.