The Trick Of Ego

The trick of ego? Yes, ego plays a huge trick on us all. Ego is a Latin word which in English translates to the first person pronoun “I”. Thus, a first-person-centred expression like “I, Henry, am here” translates in Latin to “Ego Henricus hic sum.” The English language adaptation of “ego” uses it to refer to one’s consciousness of self. Ego is the inevitable starting point of our awareness of whom we are.

But then ego is also a trickster of a cosmological dimension because it many times gives us a deceptive picture of whom we are and our place in this universe of God. There are two major ways this happens. First is when we are led by the ego to think that through temporal attainments like wealth, titles, power and other elements of mundane glory we have upgraded ourselves beyond our natural worth. Thus, with a sense of a glorified self, we may be found saying things like, “do you know who I am? Are you more educated than me? Do you know you are talking to a governor?” etc. Implicit in these expressions is a delusional self, an ego that is playing a trick unto itself by choosing to see itself not in its natural state, but rather in a state ornamented by society’s status symbols. But come to think of it: at birth we are all animals, at death we are all corpses; in-between these are illusions of inequality created by society.

Another way ego plays a trick on us is when we begin to believe that we can alter the transience nature of our being and perpetuate our presence on earth through leaving behind, upon death, a line of blood succession and/or continuing inheritance of estate (wealth). Thus, people may aim to have children just to have someone to succeed them in blood, name, and inheritance because they believe that somehow such succession extends their earthly presence beyond death. A university classmate of mine once told me that if he would become an activist, he must hurriedly marry and have a child who would succeed him in case he meets an untimely death in the course of his activism. That is ego playing its trick on his mind by leading him to feel that having a child to succeed him in blood and name somehow reduces the tragedy of death. But on the contrary, no one actually replaces another. A child born to this friend of mine will live their own life and die their own death, just as he, the father, must have lived his and died his. People’s aim of having children should be to savour their company and love and enjoy their care when they (the parents) have become old. Ontologically speaking, no one actually succeeds another. Succession is a cultural imagining.

Also, it is observable that the wealthier people are the more they desire to have a child that will succeed them in estate; they will feel a sense of loss imagining that outsiders will inherit their much cherished wealth. On the contrary, when they’re guaranteed that it will be inherited by their bloodline successor, it gives them a sense of retention of the wealth. What a trick by ego! A dead person retains no wealth; only a living person can own and possess, and can never do so on behalf of a dead person.

Why does all this happen? Why is ego seeming to play a trick on us? The reason is that ego – our consciousness of self – is partly a creation of nature and partly a creation of society. Thus, when society values wealth, titles, and class over what the real natural human dignity, it tends to create the impression that some persons are less “humans” than others simply for not having attained as much as others on these measures. When it places so much premium on blood succession, it creates the impression that succession helps us conquer our temporal nature. Hence, our ego –in the course of our socialisation – internalises these values which thus influence how it sees itself. That is the foundation of the trick of ego wherein an individual becomes deluded to feel that their material and other temporal attainments add to their natural self and that such attainments can extend their earthly presence beyond their death.

The worth of a human person cannot be hinged on something external to them –wealth, titles, class, and succession – otherwise we would be admitting that the human person lacks any inherent worth and must look outside itself to find worth. That is a big contradiction in our social existence — where a natural being looks beyond nature for their essence and worth. It calls for a deep contemplation as we aim to negotiate through the trick of ego in order not to be enslaved by wealth, titles, class and other temporal attainments, which though can ornament us as social beings, but cannot enrich us as natural beings.

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.