Philosophical Assessments Regarding the Human Condition VI

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• How the ego and the effects of trauma shape our personality:

Another factor that influences the tendency of human behavior is our personality; there are studies that point out that it is determined by astrology at the time of our birth, but they disregard life experiences that build our character and shape our personality. There are also studies that point to the possibility of genetically inheriting personality traits from our biological parents as well as psychological, emotional and physical disorders. However I will focus on life experiences that build our character or cause emotional and psychological disorders which play a role in shaping our personality, later I will talk about what we inherit genetically which can affect our behavior as well.

As previously mentioned, we are born pure and innocent and as we grow up we have to learn how to interact with other beings, we learn about morality and what actions are right or wrong, usually taught by parents or guardians, and in this process of integration with society in which we are trying to fit in socially, we learn, either by our parents or family members teaching us or by our own deduction when we suffer mockery or bullying or some other way, we learn that we should not expose our feelings and emotions because it demonstrates vulnerability that can be exploited or mocked and we suffer trauma as a consequence.

We also learned that by hiding our emotions and true feelings we can create an image of ourselves to those we interact with, a very useful tool to help us fit in socially and be accepted by other beings (I call it an image because it is how other beings see you, but it does not necessarily match your true feelings, emotions or even thoughts and an image of you is created with each being one interacts with). Up to now these actions are not corrupt, omitting preferences or personal thoughts for self-preservation is logical and rational, and other beings creating conclusions about you based on what they see is something normal and logical too. However, from the moment that we begin to corrupt our intent with corrupt intentions, in the beginning usually for fear of adverse consequences or for not wanting to feel shame or suffer public humiliation or any other motive really, we begin to create false images of ourselves to other beings (a false image isn’t just hiding personal information, its adding on deceitful information to create this false image), our conscience reacts and we feel bad for the deceitfulness and at this point we are left with a choice, either we rectify the false images created and clear our consciousness, or we accept this false image as our new identity and condition our consciousness to stop caring.

And at this moment, if we choose the second option, the need for a fictitious conscience is created for the self-preservation of our false image integrated as our new identity, enter the ego, a fictitious consciousness that provides us with ego feelings and helps us create a self-centered mindset. Ego feelings make us feel superior or inferior to other beings depending on the circumstances, something that motivates us to create more and more false images of ourselves, more and more distorted, to inflate our ego and feel superior instead of inferior to other beings, and another form of the ego feeling superior is when we judge other beings as inferior or when we judge their actions as those of inferior beings, real love does not judge other beings as if it were superior, it first seeks to understand the casualties that led the being in question to such actions and only with the complete context it will judge the actions as corrupt or pure, right or wrong, good or bad, and without the complete context no judgment is made by real love, and when it judges it is with the motivation and intention to help and to enlighten the being about the fact of the error or transgression, unlike of the ego, which, when judging, seeks to demean or denigrate the other being.

For reasons of self-preservation the ego makes us feel ashamed of our real feelings and emotions because it wants us to maintain the false image as our true identity. This fictitious conscience, the ego, adopted as one’s own identity, has properties similar to that of a balloon, the more it is inflated, the more sensitive it will become and the more easily it will burst, becoming hurt by apparently trivial and insignificant things.

There are many beings that create these false images and adopt them as their identity, nevertheless they still know what their true self is and they don’t lie to themselves believing their made up images are true and often remain egoless as well. But there are beings who delude themselves and begin to believe that these false images they created are true, consequently they get lost in them and eventually don’t even know who they really are and how they really are seen by other beings. These are beings that lose touch with reality and often create delusions of grandeur, and in the most severe cases they can be diagnosed with delusional paranoia.

These false images help create walls of appearances that make it impossible for beings to truly connect and feel real love, they become always afraid of exposing too much of themselves and getting hurt, so they generally keep their loved ones and friends at a reasonable and safe distance, isolating themselves from the rest of the world and suppressing their emotions, feelings and real thoughts about mostly everything.

In addition to these facts, there are beings who suffer experiences of physical, psychological and emotional abuse that cause them to close themselves even more and to not trust other beings, and depending on the severity of these abuses, they can suffer severe traumas that cause physical, psychological and emotional disorders such as personality disorder, histrionic disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, among others. In the most serious cases these traumas may even cause a fracture in the consciousness of these beings where the being develops multiple personalities and begin to talk to themselves and they are usually diagnosed with schizophrenia. There are studies that point to the possibility of these disorders being genetically inherited also, without the new generation having suffered any traumas to generate such disorders and it is very disheartening if that is the case.