Scientists: You Are Utterly Alone
The human ego is the loneliest structure in the entire universe
Several people have approached me at post ego events and asked me to clarify what I mean by these terms that I sometimes use: The ego. The self. The inner self. The person within the person. The psyche. The mind. The you. The me. The moi.
Because they cannot imagine living a life without an ego, self, inner self, personhood, psyche, mind or a “me.”
And they think if perhaps I clarified the definition of self, I might define it as something that they would be more happy about “giving up.”
(I should point out, I’ve never asked anybody to give up anything, but I can understand how you might get that idea from reading post ego. In fact, though, post ego means “after” ego, not “without” ego. There’s an important difference. We don’t claim to be perfect non-egoic beings. We claim to be committed to living a life free from our ego — as much as that is possible.)
What if I were to tell you that the real definition of the ego or the self is this: the self is your aloneness in the world?
That’s something you might be much more favorably inclined to give up. I mean, we all have a bit of a loner streak, but who wouldn’t want to give up their aloneness?
