Getting Over Yourself

We all seek power. We try to push ourselves up and in the process, many times attempt to push others down. It might begin with a feeling that we have been wronged, which means that our ego has been hurt, and in order to right things we might begin a verbal confrontation with the offending party. This is called revenge, and although it has been said that revenge is sweet, it is never long-lived. A revengeful mind will not rest long before it feels that it is attacked or wronged again because it is very power conscious, and if it cannot control the people or circumstances surrounding it, it remains unhappy, and therefore remains in conflict forever.

It starts with honest confrontation, usually, but if we find ourselves losing, the confrontation becomes heated. As a result, and because we desire to win so badly, and because our ego is suffering, we might cheat. The cheating can have many facets. We might begin by using fallacious arguments; these are used when we find ourselves losing prestige in our own minds because we have exhausted any logical or true arguments. An example of a fallacious argument is Ad Hominem.

When we use Ad Hominem, we attack the character of our adversary, therefore attempting to take attention off our adversary's basic argument because we don’t have a strong argument to combat it. This attack on their character attempts to replace our adversary’s actual arguments with attacks on the adversary’s personal character instead. This is done in politics all the time, and when you recognize it, you can be sure that the one who is using Ad Hominem has a weak position. An example of this would be, “How would you know anything about the truth, you are an atheist!"

Another fallacious argument is Poisoning the Well . Poisoning the Well is similar to Ad Hominem but instead of attempting to divert the attention off of the main tenet of the argument and replace it with a character attack, in a Poisoning the Well fallacy we attack the person’s past so that no one will believe what they say in the present. This doesn’t work with experienced debaters, however, who look upon this tactic as nothing short of desperation. What a person may have done in the past has no relevance of what they are today; only the present argument is important and must be looked at independently. An example of this would be, “Sam is an ex convict, therefore anything he says is not relevant."

A Straw Man is a fallacious argument that purposely ignores the main tenant of the argument and instead replaces it with an indistinct, overstated or altered version of that position. This altered version is then attacked. An example of this is, “He says that we should meditate and that meditation will reduce our stress, but that can’t be true. It would only take time away from important things that has to be done. Doesn’t he want this country to succeed? I think he is anti-American, and maybe even a socialist!" This fallacy attacks the false, altered version of the argument (he’s anti-American) and not the original argument at all (meditation can reduce stress).

If we run out of fallacial arguments (and there are scores of different kinds), or if our competition catches on and challenges the fallacies, which effectively destroys them, then we might exhaust all of our intellectual capacity and resort to immature name-calling or profane language. Profanity is a sure sign that astute debaters recognize, and when they hear it, they are then certain that their opponent has nothing left. Profanity is the sign of an immature mind void of intelligent reasoning, and therefore is quite dangerous because the only step left in the debate for the weak debater is to destroy his or her rival, either financially, psychologically, spiritually . . . or physically. Now we have the seeds of war.

All of this revenge and fighting involves one thing; our egos, and our egos are nothing but our thoughts. Thought has everything to do with hatred and fear, and hatred and fear, which leads to trying to harm another, of course comes from insecurity. We are insecure about ourselves because down deep we know the truth; that we are not real and not lasting. The truth of this is naturally denied, and we actually become submerged in a constant state of denial. Until we stop long enough to assess our real situation, we will go through the games of continually trying to prop up an ego that in essence only exists in our minds.

Simply stated, our “self" is our wants and desires. As long as we crave things, such as control and power, our "self" remains aggravated to one degree or another until we have that which we crave for in our hands. It’s a big responsibility, and what we crave for always indicates what we are.

The entire framework of all this stress and competition is something that in effect isn’t real — a self, or an ego. It seems real only because we make it real in our minds, but because our ego is nothing but a construction of thought, keeping it puffed up is like trying to hold water in our hands, — it leaks out and we must continually fill it up again. This is why maintaining an ego is such a stressful situation — the quintessential stress of our lives. If we didn’t have this perceived problem, life would be as it should be, quite wonderful and fulfilling.

One of the most effective ways to get over ourselves is to meditate, because meditation leaves the ego with no foothold. When we meditate, we study our thoughts by noticing them, and this is in effect studying our ego. When we study our self or ego, eventually we will understand it, and when we understand it, we will no longer fear it or fear that it is not strong enough. When we no longer fear our ego, we no longer have to prop it up, and since it is an illusion anyway, which we realize in meditation, a new life begins without the yoke of this contrived psychological anchor around our necks; we become free.

Now we can really find a fulfillment that leaves behind all of our perceived conflicts as we come face-to-face with God, or the ultimate; the only true freedom, which is a freedom from ourselves . . . and a big relief. n