Ego is not a dirty word, Jeremy Clarkson

Whatever that catalyst was, a proceeding to waste copious amounts of coin, on shiny paintwork was to follow. I cannot remember when it was; I first became exposed to Jeremy Clarkson, some time in the 90’s. His gangly height and speaking with punctuation somehow touched a nerve in me, kindred in vernacular and grew watching him grow.

Passion abounded Clarkson, coupled with the dynamic duo, producing a cultural catalyst of humour, which just simply worked. So intensely powerful was this partnership of personalities, that it crossed cultural bounds to become the most watched factual based program, in the world. In the marketing scene, the franchise did not only work, it simply became a goldmine of booked events, launches, appearances, shows and many a spin off.

It is not easy being human

Something happened to Jeremy along the way, not unique to him by any means and we all can and do suffer from it, given the right circumstances. Although Sky Hooks may have sung ‘Ego is not a dirty word’, it can and so often does not only turn into a dirty word, it turns into a full-scale complex.

♬
If I did not have an ego I would not be here tonight
If I did not have an ego I might not think that I was right
If you did not have an ego you might not care the way you dressed
If you did not have an ego you’d just be like the rest ♫

Complexes I know them well

Coming in at somewhere in the vicinity of 6ft6, brought up on a diet of you can do what you want and never let any bastard beat you down, is a great incubator for unbridled ego. Lets add a little success in there, a catalyst for the ego boosting incubator, to start producing the chemical imbalance, that becomes the unquestionable, irreproachable; ‘tool’. Cue whistling at the wait staff, to come hither and satisfy my needs, now and I shall make a song and dance about it, in front of my entourage. I am the personification of the egotistical, parochial conduit of pomposity.

Small man’s syndrome, big man’s syndrome, a syndrome here a syndrome there, everywhere a syndrome

We will often hear the jovial words of short man syndrome, the bulldog mentality and well, statistically; it is quite proven that the shorter man strives a bit harder overall. Although what for the tall man, the bigger man, ego in the taller man, is just as prevalent; if not more so. I have battled it my entire life, ‘you know it is hard to completely take him seriously’, funny little man. These shortcomings, human frailties, haunt us all, our circumstances, our in situ programming, influences this greatly. The believing of ones own propaganda, ‘the false narratives we tell ourselves’, all impede on the ability to, simply put, ‘see outside your own fog’.

Similar to any addiction, it is self that needs to come to the realisation of change needed, the issue with this is success. With success it is increasingly difficult to see outside the fog, will this hard slam down to reality, make a self awareness impact enough to facilitate change? Hard to say, we are seeing some small windows into regret, the private man, the man behind closed doors with wife in ear, will present a different beast. Although regret, reality and ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’, may abound thoughts; to gain clean road, to overtake ego, only history will tell that tale.

“Heartfelt thanks to all those who have written to say how much they will miss me on Top Gear,” he wrote. “It’s not as much, however, as I’ll miss being there.” http://bit.ly/1Ip9RnF

Arrogance on crack

In the brand identity world, your brand is not what you say it is, but what the market shadows back saying it is. This is often one of the hardest alignments in brand identity; the message projected, accepted, cultural soup connection made, which builds a business into a stellar brand.

TopGear’s cultural soup is so strong it produced petitions to reinstate Clarkson, the signatures overfloweth in excess of a million, in a time span that highlights the issues with society greatly, although I digress. Jeremy’s personal brand and here we go with personal brand being intrinsically linked to professional perception. From the outside, you can see an ego unbridled; you can see the arrogance and the personal brand that extends beyond the editing floor. Now it is not me to say, ‘where are the friends’, although even work colleagues have highlighted, ‘he is an asshole, but I like working with him’. Without self-realisation that the installed narrative has become, well, problematic, no change will occur.

Ego, is not a dirty word

♬
If Jesus had an ego he’d still be alive today
And if Nixon had no ego he might not be in decay
If you did not have an ego you might not care too much who won
If I did not have an ego I might just use a gun ♫

Some idiot I do not care to name, came up with a label ADHD. It labelled a non-existent condition, and preceded to medicate generations of children, whose parents lack the ability to access education that would have led them to better decisions.

• Narcissism
• Egocentrism
• Megalomania
• Conceitedness
• Amour-propre

These are often traits spoken in negative connotations, although present in almost all, if not all, highly successful people. It is almost impossible to become incredibly successful or well known and maybe a tad famous without these traits. Although handling traits installed, learned, cultivated and in many ways attributes to success, it can be problematic to gain an even keel.

Judgement day

Although we know little about judgement day, as it is end of life, we seem to be judged everyday; by the meek.

Judgmentalness in my humble opinion is a horrible trait; I marry it closely with jealousy, another of my ill-favoured emotions. Both personally I have had little issue with, maybe due to enough issues, with the aforementioned list. Judgmentalness is often derived from narrow mindedness; it often dwells in those that find it difficult to see things from another person’s perspective, or the ability to walk in their shoes. Of course, this is no simple shortcoming, wisdom, knowledge, learning and experiences all influence greatly on the ability to not be judgmental.

So should he be let off of the hook?

Well, no, he already has not, the career damage, the death of Top Gear as we know it has been done. Although what we need more of is support, we like to beat upon after the fact, yet we wish to do little in situ. As a greater species we are plagued with insecurities, doubts, fears and often the most outward confident, in the public eye, is often still a muddled, confusing, vortex of issues with often little medium thought.

We live in a world of extremes

The AA, a much needed support network for help, recovery and setting back into life for people alcohol dependant. Costs a fortune to help regulate the drug across society, which riddles lives with debilitating issues.

The War On Drugs — Just follow Mr Branson on that one, it is a diabolical problem, buried in white elephants and no easy way to shoot the bastard.

Big Brother, Facebook, the bottom of the barrel has had support groups; I mean come on now, seriously!

Drunk on power, hung-over with success, spells one hell of an AA meeting

Where are our check sums? In younger days, maybe before marriage or similar, where could there be a stopgap? Who is the circle? Most are surrounded by not friends, but inner circle. Even when out networking, meeting new ‘friends’ what is of the network, where are the ‘true friends’. To be a stopgap, a checksum in ego management, how many check boxes would need to be ticked, and how rare would that anomaly be? Talk to me now, external in thought, the greater good, the less selfish narrative. Step back in the old time machine, same result. No, far more self cantered, far less opportunity for any thought that may display elusive ‘wisdom’. We cannot fight human nature, from Plato through to modern thought and psychology; we have distinct changes within our thought processes, with age.

♬
Some people keep their egos in a bottom drawer
A fridge full of Leonard Cohen
Have to get drunk just to walk out the door
Stay drunk to keep on goin’
So if you got an ego
You better keep it in good shape
Exercise it daily
And get it down on tape ♫

Success is a drug of choice; it is more detrimental to our self than an actual drug addiction in many ways.

Another correlation that is interesting is the number of ‘elevated thinkers’ that have also prescribed to mind altering drug use.

• Sigmund Freud — Cocaine
• Francis Crick — LSD
• Thomas Edison — Cocaine Elixirs
• Paul Erdös — Amphetamines
• Steve Jobs — LSD
• Bill Gates — LSD
• John C. Lilly — LSD, Ketamine
• Richard Feynman — LSD, Marijuana, Ketamine
• Kary Mullis — LSD
• Carl Sagan — Marijuana

Addiction psychology mostly comprises the clinical psychology and abnormal psychology disciplines correlating, incubating cross-examining similarities from the application of information, obtained from research in an effort to appropriately diagnose, evaluate, treat and support clients dealing with addiction.

Throughout the treatment process addiction psychologists encourage behaviours that build wellness and emotional resilience to their mental and emotional problems. The correlation between substance abuse and ego, personifying into an installed narrative of ‘arrogance’ ‘god complex’ or the simplicity of leader syndrome whereby no one stands up to question the almighty leader.

While the basis of addiction is controversial at best, stimulating healthy arguments on all sides. Professionals view it as a disease or a choice.

• The disease of addiction
• The choice of addiction

For example, a person ‘addicted’ to playing poker machines, ‘one armed bandits’, a school of thought is addiction, support given following addiction practices, The other school of thought has us cemented clearly in the ‘choice’. A gambler may argue, sitting at the machine day in day out. ‘Taking my money, I am addicted, I have no will’. Although the same player will walk away after a win, play systems and walk away, use logic in an attempt to counter the house. A great deal of the behaviour is outside of general agreement on disease addiction.

Researches argue that the addiction process is like the disease model with a target organ being the brain, some type of defect, and symptoms of the disease. Research supports some people have more addictive personalities, or a lean, predisposition to addictive behaviour. I would surmise I garnish stereotypical, addictive, predisposition behaviour.

The addiction is like the choice model with a disorder of genes, a reward, memory, stress and choice. Both models result in compulsive behaviour, although commonly thought of addiction in terms of substance, any mechanism that rewards, produces an emotional high has capability to move into ‘addiction’.

Jeremy do you really deserve to be included with such lofty thinkers?

No!

Ego addiction, self-narrative belief of superiority complex, personified in a ‘tool on crack’.

Although as outlined above it is understandable, more so difficult to avoid without a very humble natural core, not to ‘buy into your own ego narrative’. Although some ‘wisdom’ no matter how difficult to find, should be found at a man of his years. On top of that, he has access to and would have seen his external perception many times, and not in the TopGear we love you light. James May, on many an occasion throughout many an adventure has turned around to Clarkson and berated him, for whatever stupid action he had just performed. You can clearly see on James face, he is not joking, it is not ad-lib or part of the script. “He is an asshole, but I like working with him”

Good afternoon, my name is Jeremy, I am successful, quite wealthy, and I have become an egocentric tool, can you help me?

Although the idea of EA, is something that may never gain traction, none the less, ‘menssheds’ http://menssheds.ie/ are a damn good start. Men’s Sheds or Community Sheds are non-profit organisations that originated in Australia, to advise and improve the overall health of all males. There are over 900 located across Australia; with thousands of active members, Men’s Sheds can also be found in Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Finland and Greece. http://bit.ly/1EeTxbf

Men do not get the opportunity to talk, we still have our own broken role models, human insecurities, doubts and fears and we are not good at talking about it. What we are good at, believing our own shite, which we are past masters at, and when in the height of ‘arrogance, self importance fog’, hardly a soul can gain access to the humble you.

Ego may not be a dirty word but without a stopgap, it can be a TopGear Killer, as we know it anyway.

Jeremy, you need to take a long good hard look at yourself, and understand, nobody likes a tool and you are so in the ‘not cool part of the board’.

Dedicated to: Graeme Strachan fondly known as Shirley Strachan, he was an Australian singer and television personality. He is best known as the lead singer of the 1970s rock group Skyhooks and bashed out Ego, is not a dirty word, a great loss to many people..