Oddbean new post about login | logout It is not ego in most people. It is fear. They start with fearing death, and then they fear everything. Try asking them "if you did not do that what you are doing, so what?" to whatever belief they have, and go deeper with the same question to whatever they answer. They will end up saying "well then I might die, and I don't want to die, so I take all those preventive actions that I listed from the start of the discussion". Even those with ego, also have ego because of fear of death under several other layers. They lost capability of living in the present moment. When they watch soccer game, it is not because they like it. They might have genuinely enjoyed playing it as children, but at some point they lose that skill, and start doing whatever they are doing because of something else, not because that is what their natural body wants at the present moment. And under all those reasons always is only fear of death. And if that is not stupid enough, they also have an excuse for fearing death: that is because they have responsibility to take care of someone else who is also afraid of death or is still a child and will grow to fear death, too. Sooo... Buddha essentially taught that there is no escape from them on this Earth, and best is to stay away as much as possible independent from them while helping those that want to understand it. But he did not have bitcoin. Maybe with bitcoin we can in a way prove him wrong, by taking the power away from them, and basically switching sides. Maybe.
I like this, thank you. Fear is one of the primary challenges. But what is fear? To me, fear is an irrational lack of understanding, coupled with a will to purposely avoid learning about that which you fear. Because one can only fear that which they have not taken the time to learn and understand. It is an ego-driven position, ultimately. Does fear prevent you from addressing your ego, or does your ego prevent you from addressing your fear? I lean towards the latter. I believe ego is what prevents people from taking on their fears - whatever they may be - because they cannot overcome their sense of being in order to let go of their preconceived beliefs. They are consumed by their egos to the point that they are unwilling to face their fears. I may be uneducated on this topic, but I enjoy on exploring it. https://open.spotify.com/track/51Ru43YjHNP2uLcPoswSu4?si=9a94c1ae6ff643dd
Yeah, that is an interesting angle. Which is the cause and which is the outcome? I guess there are two types of fear of death. The sheep mostly fear the event of death itself and the emptyness afterwards. While the tyrants more often fear not so much the event of death, but rather not acomplishing something before death. Dying too early that is. That is totally irrational, because who cares about anything after you die, but it is like they are endebted those accomplishments to someone. And subconciously they probably are. It seems this is how brain works: it needs a reason for everything until at some level it stops challenging the reasons. So I may agree, that this type of fear it is fair to call ego, because the brain does not remember who it is endebted to, so it basically is endebted to itself. And then fear is more a result of this debt rather then vice versa. I keep trying to deduct ego because it does not seem to be natural. No other animal has it. They fight for resources and females. In some cases it looks like they fight for status, but that is motivated only by getting access to females and food. They do not care what other members of the gang do, where they go, they do not try to remind their status to anyone as long as their access to food and females is unobstructed. They also do not look for even better nor different females in other gangs. So they are not endebted to anyone, they just live in the moment. This irrational behaviour turns them both, tyrants and sheep, into preditors on their own kind, which destroys the harmony of nature in everyone impacted. Harmony of nature is happinness, so they destroy happiness. There is always truth and new discoveries in discussion. 🤜🤛🏾 Let's do it again sometime.
Well, it is possible also to fear something known. Like pain. I have hurt myself bad while skiing, so now I get scared when I get into similar situations while skiing that I consider at high risk of causing the pain that I already experienced. But it is probably easier to control it, not let it overpower you into irrational decisions when you fear the known vs. fearing the unknown. Although some people do get irrational even about fearing to break a limb for a second time.