>>2397

>>2341

Why such the rush to get rid of the ego? You are still "of the world". The ego gives us PREFERENCE. It enhances our HUMANITY.

In Freudian terms, ego is a executive/regulator mechanism balancing out the id and superego. In modern day, this meaning has shifted to a the wellspring of our desires(id) and our puffery(maybe as a defense mechanism of the ego).

I address both meanings. Without ego, you would be either be a hedonistic neanderthal, or a motionless starved monk under the Bodhi tree. Silly examples, but you would not function well "in the world".

Just as our ego balances out or id and superego, we balance out our human/animal life with our spiritual one. You may even find they are one in the same! Life is movement, life is action. Our PREFERENCE give us a means to live ever more evolving and quality experiences.

>I struggle with my ego all the time, around making posts here. I fear looking dumb or being ridiculed.

Ego helps here, it either emboldens you to speak freely, as well as censor yourself through various defense mechanisms. This anxiety(superego) of yours stems from elsewhere. see >>2277 particularly Kazimierz Dabrowski's highly readable and excellent Positive Disintegration. Dabrowski puts Freud's theories on the "neurotic"

out to pasture, where they belong.

>> Find like minded others.

I have! Here!

IRL, it is a very lonely search. Perhaps why we are single, eh Thoth/Dr.StrangeAnon?

>>2432

Just Be. Enjoy the moment. Explore your passions. Work. Run wild in the night or meditate quietly. The pleasure of a good meal, lovemaking, art, music, experience it all with passion. Take it all in and keep going back for more.

A word of caution, balance seems to help in most instances. Like, almost all instances. Notable exceptions being music, books, art and beautiful women. One can never have enough of those things!

> So how to balance ego and unity?

Wouldn't unity be the sum of all egos, spirits and everything else?

>You may even find they are one in the same!

> … the golden rule?

There are rules?!? Says who? As to do onto others, I should hope we all have a lot more fun!

>>2468

>…. I get the Im too much a lot.

This is INTENSITY and PASSION! Joie de Vivre! A mark of a higher state of mind.

A good book on the subject is Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults by Susan Daniels, PhD. Susan Cain's Quiet: the Power of Introverts is another good resource too, highly recommended if you haven't read it already.

>>2479

Important reading secret revealed!

You can easily read several books a day. We were taught ages ago to read front-to-back, read every chapter, every sentence, every word. That is a horrible way to read!

Skim and scan and jump around. Chances are the book you are reading is repeating something you already know or read about elsewhere. Slow down at parts that are interesting, then keep on scanning. Paragraphs start looking like this:

Furthermore, ….. … …. … podiatric medicine tells us ….

… … …. …… … ….. …. … … …. ….. … …..

…. … … . ….. … ……… … … …. ….. … …..

…. … … … … ……… … … …. ….. … ………

… … … ……… … … …. ….. … ……… … …

…. ….. … ….. …. because of these alien implants ….

……. … … …. ….. … ……… …… … … …. …

.. … ……… … … …. . … …. …. … … …. ..

… … ………. … ……… … … …. ….. …. …. …

….. … …… .. and that's why your heel is just a butt for

your foot.

Now we pick up Dr. McAssFoot's Heel Theory book. Similar information, we can now blow past several chapters dealing with the foot's heel now we know the overarching(sic) point both books try to make.

We just extracted the most vital information from both books, without wasting time with irrelevant parts. This anon reads/scans 5-10 "academic" books a week. You can start this skimming skill today!

This method works especially well with paper books, as you can hop around and hop back to get the crucial concepts. by page 314 you may say "oh shit, alien implants! I recall somewhere in chapter 4 about gray alien heel probes! flip around to page 68 or so, get the info you need, and jump back to 314 to continue the scanning.

Plus if it is published on paper, it cost more resources(money+time), and (generally) be researched information of higher quality. Take in high quality books, come out with high quality ideas!

Something not clear? Put one of those fingers, (hopefully clean, boogers do make their way to library books) on the unclear page and keep plowing through the chapter. Chances are there's a summary page at the end that clarifies things, otherwise flip back to that spot when you see more keywords show up. ebooks=much slower.

And the best part, you already have this skill reading tons of chan posts and webpages! And for fuck's sake, you people watch a lot of movies and TV. Turn that shit off! Better yet, throw out your TV! Quality in, quality out. Learn more, faster about the stultifying truth about your feet! Visit your local library today!