< 🐈
Meow

The Ego Is The Way

Follow it

Follow your ego
To the darkest cliff
Where your wildest dreams
And deepest fears
Lurk, mate, reproduce and multiply

Let it consume all of you
Subsume the totality of your being
Drive you to utter insanity
Complete delusion
And maybe to the brink of what you could be

Then kill it
Murder the beast
Allow yourself to be humiliated, to be rejected
Free yourself from your self actualised bullshit
And see yourself as the P.O.S. you are

Play with it
Like a cat toys w catnip
Follow it, fuck with it, immerse in it
But never take it too fucking seriously
Just have fun with it!

——-

I think modern psycho theories and self help shit about ignoring and downplaying ego is totally dumb. In contrast, I believe one should fully understand, appreciate and harness your own ego, and play with your own ego, like a girl playing with her vibrator trying to find the sweet spot or a guy with his prostate.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing interesting that is achieved without the help and drive provided by the ego. Everyone I’ve ever met who’s interesting have a clear unhidden ego, and everyone else either does not have one or tries to hide it. I find clear manifestion and mastery of one’s ego incredibly sexy, and I am prob not alone.

Buddha, the dude that preached all that stuff about nirvana and dropping ego was probably one of the biggest egomaniacs in history. Think about it - What kind of huge ego does one need to have in order to actually believe that he found the secret to all life by sitting under a tree, and then selling n shilling it so relentlessly hard that an entire population believed it and preached it forward for centuries to come?

Similarly, all US presidents are most definitely egomaniacs, As Eisenhower once said “You either need to be crazy or an egomaniac to want to be president of the United States”. Lincoln, the only president who had the immense courage to execute the inevitable division of the country in order to finally unite it, suffered enormously in his life, going through endless episodes of ups and down - but always had deep, explicitly expressed belief in his ability to bring the nation to a better place - and that’s exactly what he did.

The link between psychosis and genius is pretty well covered, tho it will not be covered in most management textbooks. A pretty interesting book covers examples like Churchill and Hitler, and Elon Musk’s relationship with maniac episodes is probably the most well known modern example.

The link between psychosis and genius is of course, ego. The ego is what feeds all the self-grandiose and fears of failure/rejection into the psychosis, and forcing yourself to live up to all that expectations and avoid losing is of course what produces genius.

For genius is never, ever a matter of talent. One certainly can be born into talent, or be groomed into path of talent, but for talent to become genius, is a hard, never-ending slog of success, failure, winning, losing, validation, rejection, actualising, flailing, love, ignored, well earned sweat and wasted blood.

And what provides the energy through all that ups and downs?

Ego of course.

At the same time of course, beware the ego, for it is when you finally, finally get on top of the mountain that it is the most dangerous. The higher up you are, the more you can fall, and there is nothing more that the ego wants to do than push you off that fucking cliff.

It happened to Hitler, happened to Trump, to Elizabeth Holmes, to Mao, and to many who try successfully to land on the cover of Forbes, and it can most definitely happen to you the next time you have any kind of win.

Great examples of those who were brave enough to follow their ego and allow it to do mostly whatever the fuck it wanted, but had the ability/foresight/battle scars to force it under control when needed includes Jobs, Musk (mostly), Jesus (prob) etc.

Zhuge Liang of 3 Kingdoms fame was probably one of the best examples but one relatively unknown to Western audiences rode his ego and genius to being the most admired figure in his era, then achieved absolute power over his state when the king passed away and handed him the keys to the chaotic kingdom with no poweful heirs in sight.

A man of less foresight, forebearance and mastery of ego would have either seized the throne and tried to conquer the entire nation (he would have faced little real opposition) or handed over the keys to the weak heirs with his reputation already consolidated and went back to the mountains to paint with a harem.

Instead, he did neither, initially consolidating his power firmly in order to fuel the beauracary, strengthen the law and refine the administration. Then when all is in place, he handed off power to the heirs, consolidating his legacy as the symbol for intelligence, wisdom, loyalty and courage for likely the entirity of human history.

Mao in contrast, fucked it up. He could not do it. He got to the top, then his need to stay on top and be worshipped caused him to set an the world’s biggest nation and longest culture to fucking flames. Ditto for Do Kwon or SBF or Hitler, such a fucking waste for all these generational leaders.

Anyhow, just be a cool cat.
Don’t be a puss and hide your ego or worse yet, flaunt it everywhere and fake humility,
Don’t let your ego cause too much harm and push you over the cliff and take everyone down w them.
Play your ego like a cat plays w catnip
Follow it, immerse in it, but never ever fucking take it too seriously

Notes:

  1. I think Elon is probably the prime example of following and taming the ego. His ego (and legions of fans who feed it) is probably what’s on public self display all the time, but I promise you there is an entire army of insiders, advisers, high level management and feedback loops to keep that beast from setting everything to fire.
  2. People like this are most usually terrible to work with, and a pain in the ass, but the ones that win are those that combine the clarity and power a big ego provides with the ability to emphatize with others
  3. There are a few important follow ups to this quick essay, including how the ego is sexy as fuck, and how to practise the ego into your daily life in things like fitness, and how to follow the ego as a core decision making principle. Will write next time.
  4. Powerful mechanisms for controlling the ego includes experiential feedback (not analytical), a deep understanding of strategy vs dreams, putting yourself in states of deep vulnerability (which is why BDSM is so popular amongst otherwise super alpha males) and deep trained empathy.

Todos: