Welcome Back!
It’s been a week or so since I last posted and I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to get this one out. Not necessarily because it’s hard mind you, but because the topic is one that can be sensitive and often misunderstood. I’m not sure if you noticed, but there seems to be a slight theme developing in my posts. Over the last few weeks, I’ve posted about a few ideas that have relied on a simplified idea to explain a more complex topic. Part of that simplification came in the form of miscommunication between parts of your brain and how we rationalize that miscommunication which is what inspired this post. In that post, I limited the miscommunication as it related to the procrastination which worked well in helping understand the underlying causes of why a person might procrastinate. What I didn’t mention though, is that our brains are almost constantly making those compromises due to competing interests and motivations/purposes that have developed between the different parts of our brain.
Our brains developed at different rates and different times for different purposes and those different purposes can often be counterintuitive when it comes to how they interact. This mishmash of instructions can often be confusing; ever had a reaction that didn’t make sense or lost your temper in a way that’s just not you? Yep, that’s one part of your brain overriding other parts to produce an action that your body has decided is necessary. Fortunately for us, other parts of our brain are very good at interfacing with those instructions. In fact, our brain has found a way to create an impressive adaptability for almost any environment that we find ourselves in. That impressive adaptability is very much tied with what psychology calls ego.
You may be familiar with the term, you may even use it in your day to day, but ego is a concept that describes more than just a person’s level of self-confidence or delusion. Ego is what I like to call our ‘interface’. If you’ve every operated a computer, or a smartphone or tablet, you’re already very familiar with the concept of an interface. An interface is simply the point where two different systems meet and interact. Interfaces can be extremely simple (a radio dial) or incredibly complex (AI Program/Chatbot) and all over in between. Usually, interfaces are designed or upgraded to make the communication between two systems simpler and more consistent. Turns out, ego does much the same thing.
Understanding the Interface
If we think of the world as its own system with its own perils, language, communication patterns, unspoken rules and amazing diversity, but its own thing, separate from us as a person. Now take our internal brains, another system completely separate from the world. Our internal thoughts, feelings, and everything else that makes us, us, isn’t available at first glance to anyone but ourselves. Because of that, there are two systems that are required to communicate. The outside world and our internal brains. Hence, the need for an interface.
Our brains, which often miscommunicate and produce conflicting instructions, enable us to interface with the world around us and, through that interface, allow us to live and survive in a world that’s not always as comfortable or safe as we’d like. And the world itself changes along with our circumstances and the places we find ourselves in. That changing system requires a way for us to have or find answers to novel experiences that can be completely unexpected. Those new experiences and unexpected changes require an interface that can make rapid decisions and changes to ensure our survival, while at the same time, the developing society of humanity required an interface that could stop, think, and then respond in order to live peaceably among other humans. Those are very different purposes, and our brain developed at least two systems to deal with it (simplification again) and for this post’s purposes more than enough information to get the point. Let’s call our two internal systems the emotional and rational brain.
Those two systems, with their competing needs and impulses, required their own interface to interpret the conflicting signals. Our brains, being rather good at what they do, expanded that interface to a point where it became one of the sole ways that our internal brain can communicate with other systems (the world, other people, environments, etc). Again, skipping a lot of history, biology, and psychological development over long stretches of time. But suffice it to say that ego is the term used to describe that interface and that ego is the amalgamation of our internal system’s communication or signals and how we respond to those signals. Or, to phrase it in a more digestible manner, ego is how we interact with the world.
Defining You
So far, we’ve discussed ego as an abstract concept, explaining what it is and ‘why’ we have it. This is where the tricky part comes in though, because the fact of the matter is that everyone has an ego and egos are sensitive. They’re supposed to be, they do a lot of work and are constantly running in the background doing work that we may not even be aware that we’re doing. Remember, the ego’s incredibly adaptive, but it’s also very good at altering our perception of reality. Ever interacted with someone who has a bit too much confidence in their abilities? Or maybe someone who underestimates their skill level in something they’re actually very good at? That’s ego at work. For some reason, the ego in those people have built in defenses based on specific inputs that resulted in those mismatched feelings versus the reality. And since our ego is constantly adapting, it’s also constantly trying to find stability because that’s what makes it happy and when it’s happy it doesn’t need to work as hard.
But wait, are you saying that our pride/confidence is just ego? Yep! And all of your insecurities and the general ways in which you approach life. Ever noticed the bubbly personality of the girl next to you? Or maybe the morose fellow a few rows back? Or the angry man down the street yelling at you to get off his lawn? These are all manifestations of ego. If it helps, you can think of ego as your personality. Your ego is the manifestation of your inner brain adapting to its environment and those adaptions are part of the reason that humanity displays so many different variations and approaches to solving problems. How does it work? Well…we’ll get to that. Next time.
Aaron Rushing, LCSWA
Strong Foundations Counseling, PLLC
Office: (336) 609-6844
Fax: (336) 217-9259
admin@strongfoundationspllc.com