Patterns of ego dependency

[LoBagola]

After reading the fountainhead I've become much more aware of how much second-handedness is ingrained in our culture, and how much of it is part of my psychology too. Of course I retain much of my own thoughts and independence (only when conscious and thinking) and strive to continue developing that, but I am constantly caught out by automated parts of my psychology.

I can think of a few phrases or patterns which capture this dependency on others. I'd love for anyone else to contribute if they have picked up on similar patterns. I'm constantly picking up on more.

"Get ahead in life"

Get ahead of who?

"Your not doing so bad, look at person(s) X"

This can serve to temporarily alleviate an anxiety about one's shortcomings

"X makes you appreciate what you have"

This has some legitimacy. E.g. the feeling I have getting into bed or taking a shower after a multi-day survival trek. I still strive for more but everything I have, no matter how simple, gives me so much more pleasure. Yet there is another meaning that I think encourages someone to strive for less. This is when you look at another culture suffering and then conclude that "we shouldn't complain" about something so minor as a bad regulation.

"Mediocrity"

I've often wanted to avoid "mediocrity", but introspection revealed my standards were often set by looking at other people (or arbitrarily invented) and wanting to be better than them at something.

"We're different"..."We're weird"..."We're special"

I used to think I was somehow special or superior, but the trick was leaving that feeling undefined and unidentified. After more experiences interacting with people I'm finding it to be quite a common feeling. Numerous friends throughout my life have often told me they feel weird, special or better than others (in some vague undefined way). Of course they may be. Everyone is different. But the statement often comes from a place of comparing oneself to others. I think very often it should not arise in the first place.

I could write much more on this. Like how I think it often serves as a pretence at self-respect and esteem. The consequences are reality smashing you in the face in the future; losing self-respect and needing to rebuild, missing out on amazing friendships due to incorrect assumptions about people and many more.

"I'm bad at .... but it's very common"

This relates to the previous example. I have often found myself alleviating pain by comparing myself to others when I've found a weakness. E.g. I'm too dependent on others in X manner, but it seems to be a common cultural thing. Therefore I'm not so bad. Moral evaluation of myself is a separate matter, but the point is the actual act of comparison alleviates the pain/anxiety.

There are many more, but they are random concrete events rather then something I can subsume under a phrase. One worth mentioning is actually a post in this forum where I said that there must be something about Rand's theory on sex that I don't get because she's really good at making wide integrations. JASKN said he thinks she's wrong and that just because she may be incredibly good at making wide integrations does not mean she is correct. It hit me that very often in my life I'd taken anything given by someone intelligent as necessarily true. I remember once looking up what Einstein had to say on God. If Einstein said God existed then surely something was wrong with the way I was thinking about it - that was the psychology.

Edited December 7, 2013 by LoBagola

[bluecherry]

"I can think of a few phrases or patterns which capture this dependency on others. I'd love for anyone else to contribute if they have picked up on similar patterns. I'm constantly picking up on more."

Oh, I know an EXTREMELY obnoxious one I've been seeing around lately. I've only seen/heard it online so far, but I think if I ever encountered it conversing with somebody offline that I'd just have to get up and leave the room. "First world problems." It's one of those things where people try to illegitimize the pains and concerns of others by pointing out that others have more severe problems. I loath when people do that crap, like nobody REALLY has anything wrong or insufficient in their life unless they have it worse off than the rest of the entire billions of people in the world, and maybe even ones that aren't alive anymore.

[whYNOT]

Right: when the yard-stick is not each person's direct relationship with reality, but instead the standards of 'others' --- implicit altruism-collectivism (of which second-handedness is an explicit form and consequence) holds sway.

 

[One slogan that always bothered me, from the 80's, I think, was : "Think global, but act local".

Edited December 7, 2013 by whYNOT

[LoBagola]

I used to love the quote by Nietzsche "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music". That was a theme quote I had with a girlfriend, once. I hate that quote now. It depends how you view it. But I viewed it thus...

 

 "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music". The glory in the quote being the superiority over others. Whereas it should really just be "We were dancing" and nothing else matters. To most this would seem an unnecessary observation, but I'm convinced this is evidence of issues deeply rooted in psychology, and that while it may not seem like a big deal these issues give birth to escape clauses from living to one's full potential.

[bluecherry]

Well, I don't know the whole context of the quote, but supposing I'm not missing anything important, I don't think the quote is about superiority. It's more like a statement about how there's always going to be challenges in the form of people who don't have the same context of knowledge as you or who are willfully blind/deaf, but it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you or what you're doing or that you should give up just because there's these other people hassling you.

[Eiuol]

That's one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes, besides the one that conveys"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I did some research, and it turns out the quote about dancing never came from Nietzsche. Anyway, I still like the quote. "They were dancing" sounds bland, a sentence Hemmingway might use. Imagine, though, that you were dancing, but people thought you were insane for no reason other than they didn't hear the music. This conveys that you see someone dancing yet doesn't stop dancing just because other people don't notice the music. Why people don't notice the music is a separate question. Translate that to something like a painter. "Van Gogh was thought to be insane by those who didn't even look at his paintings." Van Gogh truly was thought of as insane, but as any independent person would do, he still painted since it was his passion.

Nietzsche did say something interesting that seems related:

"Even in the German Middle Ages, under the same power of Dionysus, constantly growing hordes thronged from place to place, singing and dancing; in these St. John’s and St. Vitus’s dances we recognize the Bacchic chorus of the Greeks once again, with its precursors in Asia Minor, right back to Babylon and the orgiastic Sacaea. There are people who, from a lack of experience or out of apathy, turn mockingly or pityingly away from such phenomena as from a “sickness of the people,” with a sense of their own health. These poor people naturally do not have any sense of how deathly and ghost-like this very “health” of theirs sounds, when the glowing life of the Dionysian throng roars past them."
http://ask.metafilter.com/212685/Did-Nietzsche-actually-say-this

In other words, judging pleasurable activities as bad/wrong/unhealthy is a sad state to live in. Why stop dancing if there is nothing actually going wrong?

Edited January 4, 2014 by Eiuol

[LoBagola]

I know. I get it. What I'm saying though, is that when I took that quote out as my own, while dropping it's original context in Zarathustra, it's power was derived by the emphasis on OTHER PEOPLE. When all that should matter is: Something is good. Your doing it. "We danced" FULL STOP. Maybe there were other people in the scene, thinking I was insane, but they should have never been there in my thoughts. They should have never had a place in a quote that summarises the experience. Why should I even need to re-assure myself that I'm good, by comparison, and some people just can't hear my music. 

 

It's like when I used to tell someone about who I was and why I was special, the specialness was derived by comparison. I am "different" because x... Implicitly what I was saying was "I'm great because no one else is X and X is good". Whereas it should just be I am X. Nothing else matters.

 

And you think it doesn't matter, but it does because the root cause of that attitude filters through to every action you take and every interaction you have with every person.

[Eiuol]

I know. I get it. What I'm saying though, is that when I took that quote out as my own, while dropping it's original context in Zarathustra, it's power was derived by the emphasis on OTHER PEOPLE.

Nietzsche never said it, it's a commonly misattributed quote. i was about to post an interpretation of Nietzsche, but then I found out it wasn't him. It was a phrase that was used since before Nietzsche was alive by various writers.

 

I'm not seeing it as a statement of superiority or reassurance through a comparison to others. For the most part, it's a descriptive statement, saying that some people see others as being insane for being different. If you use it as a first-person statement, really it only suggests you'll keep doing something even if you are wrongly judged for it. The quote block I gave is how Nietzsche would probably interpret the quote, and I gave that to explain how denying yourself on grounds of moral superiority is a sad state of affairs. Of course, "we danced" is okay, but it doesn't say anything about how others may think. What counts is that it is a statement about other people, a pithy line to say: "You know the people who think you are insane for dancing? It doesn't matter! Let them live their empty life, it's not your concern".

[StrictlyLogical]

I get your point in the OP LoBagola.

 

The virtue of independence is a rare thing in modern society, no wonder how so many struggle to discover and attain it.

 

I know of Partners of international law firms making over 1 mil/year who still VERY CLEARLY feel they need to "prove themselves" to others.  Not the pinnacle of adult self-actualization, in fact I would say there is a strong lack of maturity.

 

This "grown child" phenomenon is rampant in today's culture everywhere through out the socioeconomic spectrum.  Very sad.

[LoBagola]

Ahh I'm so happy you get what I mean. I was worried I might be starting to see patterns where none exist. But I keep seeing them. EVERY DAY.

 

Last night I went for dinner with someone. He saw me doing something that impressed him. He told me "YOUR FUCKING AMAZING. LOOK AROUND YOU. NO ONE DOES WHAT YOU DO". All these people around you. But it's irrelevant. The fact is, if you think like that your implicitly counting on the worst within others. I know the quote doesn't provide the full-context. I can't do that. But you'll have to trust that it was power dervied by comparison. I was telling him I want / should be / could be doing more. 

 

Two nights ago I caught my flatmate watching some trashy reality tv crime show. I imitated someone being interviewed. He said :"but doesn't watching it make you feel so much better atyourself???""!!!!!

 

 

Ahh!

[whYNOT]

True, second-handedness as a component, cause, consequence of self-sacrifice, i.e. altruism.

 

"Implicitly counting on the worst within others". I like that. Mimicking the worst in others as well.

Edited January 11, 2014 by whYNOT

[LoBagola]

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 

-- Robert Frost

 

A popular quote. Power derived from others. He took the road less travelled... Maybe it was the one he really wanted, maybe it wasn't. The point is he emphasised that it was less travelled, by others. A while ago I would have used this to make me feel better about any less popular or common view I held.

 

It's funny because everyone I talk to likes to take the road less travelled. In order to hold a sense of esteem we have to feel superior to others in some vague undefined way. But it's built on a shaky foundation. It requires you to evade so much and miss out on so much good too. With that said, it's not like there is much out there (in terms of resources) to help you built up a solid foundation.

Edited January 26, 2014 by LoBagola

[Harrison Danneskjold]

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