
The Benefits of a Quiet Ego - gull
http://www.quietrev.com/the-surprising-benefits-of-a-quiet-ego/
======
icanhackit
The gold is at the bottom: _“The humble person is probably more aware and
accepting of the fact that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every
human being is minute.”_

If there's one thing that will humble you it's trying to fathom the scale of
the universe. You think a celebrity matters at these scales? But don't let it
make you feel impotent - rejoice at the fact that you're alive, you exist and
the world is fucking interesting. Even if you just stare out the window all
day, you're a consciousness residing in a stardust body observing the thing
that made you.

~~~
codeshaman
"that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every human being is minute"

There is a paved road to clinical depression which starts with thoughts like
these. I know it because I've taken it.

Life stops having meaning if you take this too seriously - I mean, why do
anything or achieve anything if we're just specs in time and space destined to
die and be forgotten ?

Besides, this doesn't necessarily imply humility. If it doesn't matter then it
doesn't matter - if you've got a small/quiet ego or you're a larger-than-
universe egomaniac... because... we're just a minute...

~~~
welanes
We are minute, yet here we are - the Universe observing itself.

"Why do anything?". Presented with these options, which would you prefer:

A. Live a normal life and be promised that after your death people will
fabricate a story of your adventure, heroism and glory?

B. Live a life of adventure, heroism and glory with the promise that when you
die nobody will remember you?

The point being, why derive meaning from the notion of being remembered by
people you will never know, when the meaning may be found in the experiences
our actions produce now?

The heights of human happiness (yeah, misery too) are ours for the taking.
Derive meaning from trying to squeeze as much of the former from life as we
possibly can.

~~~
greggman
I'm not disagreeing with you but just feeling like I could look at (A) as be
helpful too lots of people and (B) live a selfish life of hedonism. Was that
your intent or do you see a different way of defining (A) and (B)?

------
andor
While there might be some benefits, the biggest disadvantage of humbleness is
that many people are not prepared for it. It's not how the role models on TV
act, therefore it's weird.

People often take ego as an indicator for status or intelligence. If you're
not asserting yourself, you don't know as well, or you're not as smart as
others. Humbleness doesn't mix well with assertiveness. Assertive people need
to be humble around humble people, and the other way around. With just two
persons it might work, add more and you get interesting group dynamics.

~~~
marcus_holmes
It's perfectly possible to be both humble and assertive. Assertiveness is
about having clear boundaries and enforcing them. You can be humble about your
place in the wider scheme of things and very assertive within that place.

Humility doesn't mean letting people walk all over you, it means not thinking
you're the most important person in the room.

Mr Myagee (sp?) from Karate Kid was both humble and assertive.

------
ken47
What's interesting in these comments is the egos clearly trying to defend
themselves. Introspection begins with the question: do you own your ego or
does it own you?

~~~
hosh
Heheheheh :-)

------
marsay
Seems like a rebranding of old ideas. We should be expecting new book soon I
guess.

All this has been talked about by various western authors and scholars
before(Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Carl G. Jung etc.) and as far as I
understand them, they all agree on one thing: western people are good at being
individuals, having an ego, and it would be mistake to start removing this
part of ourselves and think about it as something bad. Of course we should be
integrating mindfullness and controlling our narcissistic behaviour, but
without antagonizing our ego.

~~~
rukuu001
> All this has been talked about by various western authors and scholars
> before(Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Carl G. Jung etc.)

I'm reading Marcus Aurelius (AD121-180) right now. It's one of the themes he
covers over & over again.

------
hliyan
I've come to see ego as just another evolutionary mechanism that can on
occasion misfire due to the complexities of modern civilization. It's a
mechanism (IMO) in gregarious species meant to maintain or enhance a member's
status in the pack/tribe/group, since that status affords survival advantages.

But a lot of the times when ego is triggered today have nothing to do with
survival advantages or success. Identifying this fact in itself is a first
step to quieting down the ego. Identifying a feeling as not valid (just
because a feeling is 'natural' doesn't automatically make it valid) can take
away a lot of the justification to perpetuate it.

~~~
mjburgess
Anything can be reduced to cheap evolutionary psychology with just-so stories.

~~~
hliyan
There's no need for condescension (especially on HN). I presented that as an
opinion rather than a scientific assertion. In terms of practicality, it is no
more valid or invalid than most of the other theories/models of the human mind
we entertain. But yes, I share your disdain for evolutionary psychology
theories not backed up by data (I suspect these are what you call "cheap").

~~~
mjburgess
It wasn't condescension. Every word was accurate, intended, and addressed
widely with the intention of it being understood by equally competent people.
My concision was a reaction to its banality.

The problem with evo-psych just-so stories is that they do not discriminate
between possible worlds: ie. if men of place A were all angry then the just-
so-ers of place A would come up with a story about why men are
"evolutionaryily angry". And if men were mellow in place B, we'd get some
other story about how men are evolutionarily mellow.

Narratives of this kind are not good explanations of anything. And I suspect
mostly false anyway, since evoltuion does not provide particular psychologies
genetically - genetics provides merely the hardware, not the software.

~~~
hliyan
> since evoltuion does not provide particular psychologies genetically -
> genetics provides merely the hardware, not the software.

I'd venture to say that's an unsupported assertion.

------
kfk
It's funny how most of this ideas are in reality very old concepts of
Greek/Roman philosophy. Seneca was a big proponent of "quite ego", for
instance (his critic to a strong ego/desire: Tamquam mortales timetis, omnia
tamquam immortales concupiscitis). Socrates could be too. I think the common
denominator was the understanding that we have no access to the Truth and that
we might as well spend the time trying to know ourselves.

~~~
dschiptsov
It is actually Indian philosophy, based on Upanishads, much older that
anything Greek/Roman. Basically, they say that it is your "ego" which prevents
you, like a veil, from seeing reality as it is, because your mind is
constantly busy, preoccupied with petty desires and childish concerns. Think
of the ego as a virus processes with results in a high load average

    
    
       load average: 5.38, 5.30, 4.11
    

The oldest maxim says - let it go (killall -9) and you will find everything
(the ultimate reality, which is unity of everything, the state above socially
conditioned intellect (which could be called 100% idle), and source of endless
joy (due to personal realizations of unity and non-self) which is (and always
been) within you.

This is, by the way, the basis of Buddhism, which nowadays is ruined by piles
upon piles of narcissistic commentaries of so-called teachers.

~~~
puredemo
The idea of some "ultimate reality" is so annoying to me. There is regular ol'
reality which our mind and senses have evolved to perceive as best they can
via natural selection over millions of years.

The reasons we have a lot of "scripts" running in our mind is because they
have historically helped us survive and pass on our genetics. Turning them off
doesn't manifest joy but a genetic dead-end, in aggregate.

~~~
PavlovsCat
We evolved to spread our genes better, yes, but how does perceiving reality as
best as we can follow from that? Both things are kinda orthogonal I'd say.

> Turning them off doesn't manifest joy but a genetic dead-end, in aggregate.

Everything ends, anyway. So at worst it'd be a dead end just like everything
else :P And concepts like "chair" or "puredemo" or _anything_ we talk or think
about are really more concepts than tangible, discrete entities, you might
also say they're made up. They can be useful shorthands, but when they take on
a life of their own in our minds, when we think the symbol is the thing,
that's where things get kinda pathetic, and not rarely it turns into a sort of
pyramid scheme where we have to make up more shit to defend the delusions we
already are invested in. Considering neuroscience, I'd even say we are
willfully overriding what we discover because we like the delusion of ego
better.

And considering what humanity "in aggregate" is up to, how we pollute and
destroy, I would say the latest word in the effectiveness of ego to "survive"
isn't spoken yet. It's not like there is this alternate Earth where people pay
attention to people like Buddha or Erich Fromm we can compare ours to.

To me saying "we" have evolved to be this way for obvious reaons is like
saying "this person is a heroin addict because that's obviously the best way
get them going each day", without comparing them to a non-junkie in earnest.
If you think not being possessed by ego means just meditating all day or doing
nothing, you're wrong, from what I understand and experienced it just means
doing and being without having a fake narrative in your head about it you
consider to be real and super cereal. Being deeply content and at peace feels
great, too, and compared to that short bursts of "ego-based" happiness seem
very flimsy.

------
carapat_virulat
So how is a quiet ego measured? I understand those four facets in the article
are supposed to correlate with the quiet ego, so it would be interesting how
the loudness of your ego is measured before those 4 questions. Otherwise is
seems like imposing your own bias to create a category that fits your per-
conceived western Buddhism bias.

For example "Facet #1: Detached awareness", I don't really see what "detached"
adds to the category of awareness if it only involves those 3 questions
mentioned in the article. I can easily imagine people that also score low on
those questions but who practice "involved awareness" feeling really attached
to what they are doing in a very aware state of mind.

Same with the rest of facets, the idea that "Facet #3: Perspective taking"
involves quieting your ego is a point of view that is not obvious and you will
have to prove somehow. I think for a lot of people empathy intuitively
involves feeling the pain of others as your own, which is not a detached
feeling at all, and involves a strong involvement of the ego.

And I really can not see how the last point of personal growth is supposed to
fit with the rest of them. It seems like the typical Western Buddhist
marketing, they start speaking about how alienated we are in our consumerist
way of life, some love and compassion follow, but the real selling point is
that with their help and a little bit of detachment you can even be MORE
successful on the consumerist game.

All in all I don't buy it unless there's more to it.

~~~
cinquemb
> _So how is a quiet ego measured?_

In our lab, we recognize is as deactivation in the PCC, some of our
collaborators recognize it as deactivation in the DMN, measurable with both
EEG/fMRI.

> _All in all I don 't buy it unless there's more to it._

I'd say it's preferable if more people don't feel like they have to "buy" into
it… but as you know, there's a burgeoning industry surrounding such, but I'm
mostly grateful that I get to be apart of working on the technology which I'd
say will be way more useful outside of just meditation and contemplative
practices…

------
thetruthseeker1
Interesting. I want to make a point that questions the premise of the article.
What is wrong if people dont have a quiet ego? What is wrong with the fact
that humility is mentioned 43% less. Why is that automatically bad( I am not
saying it is good either)? Values of a society change over period of time,
many things that were acceptable behavior in the 1900s are not acceptable
anymore. In the early 1900s black people were disenfranchised, there were no
laws to protect same sex partners. I am sure many of you will agree that you
dont miss those laws.

Again why do we want to demonize or characterize not having a quiet ego as
less superior to having a quiet ego. I do think that if the non-quiet ego is
bombastic and misleads people by stating not true statements, that can be a
problem.

~~~
learning_still
Let's be honest. The things the article is talking about are largely a
reflection of people's demands. The type of people who are looking for self
help are clearly not looking for lessons in humility. There is a type of
person who would experience problems in their life from not having enough
humility. Maybe the number of these people who experience enough personal
problems to seek self help has gone down. Perhaps this means that our society
has actually become more humble, since there isn't a demand for the value
anymore. Or maybe it means that people without humility simply don't
experience as many problems anymore? Or maybe a lack of humility would prevent
you from seeking self help in the first place. You see these statistics could
go many ways depending on how you want to interpret them.

~~~
jal278
The reduction of 'humility'/'humbleness' was across a broad sample of books,
not only the self-help section, and was part of a broader study [1] describing
the down-trend in many words associated with virtue.

You can indeed interpret these statistics in many ways, but you first need to
know the statistics.

[1]
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254336923_The_cultu...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254336923_The_cultural_salience_of_moral_character_and_virtue_declined_in_twentieth_century_America)

~~~
learning_still
Thank you for pointing this out.

------
leoh
I really liked this — but how to cultivate a quiet ego?

~~~
zhoujianfu
Sadly, I would say experiencing a great personal tragedy is a "good" way to
cultivate it. There really is nothing like the death of a loved one to put
everything, including your own place in the world, in perspective.

~~~
puredemo
That gave me more of a sense of urgency and egoic ambition, not the other way
around.

------
rokhayakebe
I would pay for a social network/dating app/site for the introverted. I just
do not know whether this is an oxymoron or not, but if someone figures this I
would pay for it. Gladly.

~~~
hliyan
An 'Anti-social network', so to speak. I too, have thought of this before. The
main feature, I suppose, would be that interactions revolve around smaller
groups.

~~~
onion2k
Introversion has nothing to do with being anti-social. An introverted person
can be as sociable as an extrovert. The main difference is that the introvert
doesn't get energised by being around other people; they need time alone to
recharge. An extrovert is the opposite - they're tired by spending time alone
but recharge in social situations.

Susan Cains book "Quiet" is an exceptional exploration of the field, and well
worth reading to breakdown some of the misconceptions about introverts.

~~~
learning_still
Is there any hard science that supports that you can generalize the entire
population into two categories: introverts and extroverts? I find this
impossible to believe.

~~~
onion2k
Introvert and extrovert are the two extremes of a well-defined spectrum which
everyone places on _somewhere_. Those in the middle are called ambiverts.

~~~
learning_still
Why would there even be a spectrum? Maybe a 2 dimensional spectrum. I'm sure
someone can be both an extreme introvert and an extreme extrovert. Honestly, I
think the idea is ludicrous. People aren't so different. But if there is hard
science to back it up, I'd be willing to have my mind changed.

~~~
RogerL
Look at the work of Harvard Professor Jerome Kagan, or the fRMI work of Carl
Schwartz at MA General Hospital. People are different, and the differences are
measurable, both behaviorally and in brain structure.. It's not as simple as
introversion-extroversion, but its also not a useless way of thinking about
it.

Anyway, somebody offered you a book to read. You chose to call the ideas in it
ludicrous without reading it. Not sure why.

------
jstanley
Off topic: site totally unreadable on my phone. The content is in a huge font,
wider than the screen, and zoom behaviour is disabled...

------
nathan_f77
I don't want to lose any anxiety about death. I'm hoping that organizations
such as sens and calico can solve aging within my lifetime, and that I'll be
able to afford the treatments. This goal definitely requires a strong ego. It
takes pride to say that I deserve to live longer, instead of donating that
money to save other people's lives. I've come to the conclusion that I would
like to extend my life indefinitely, and I'll have plenty of time to help the
poor after that.

Of course, I'm probably going to die pretty soon (relatively speaking), and
I've come to terms with that, but you should question the inevitability of
death.

~~~
hosh
The anxiety of death isn't just about the death of the body. It is rooted
deeper into the anxiety about change.

This is change happening at the microscopic scale all the way to the
macroscopic scale: the death of a thought, the death of an emotion, the death
of an idea, the death of an ideal, the death of a pet, the death of a person,
the death of a group, the death of a startup, the death of a community, the
death of a nation, the death of a civilization, the death of a star, the death
of a galaxy, the death of the universe.

Real change does not happen without the death of the old.

Change is inherent. Changes happen with or without you. Resisting change makes
from some incredible drama, but it doesn't have to be a struggle.

You could find longevity treatments so that your body does not die, but I
think people will ultimately find the whole thing fruitless even if it works.

------
hosh
I think this really depends on someone's stage of development for a particular
issue. I'm coming from the frame that, there is no "standard" maturity for an
"average" person. Each of us have pieces of ourselves that are in different
stages of growth, and not necessarily because some of them got "stuck"
somewhere. It is what it is.

For some people, on some issues, there is a need to assert themselves. I've
met people for whom, some issue, left them feeling victimized, helpless, and
hopeless. There's a shift that happens when, such a person drops that sense of
victimization, and develops the sense of the initiative, of agency, of being
able to make choices. For a lot of people, this idea that you can make choices
(as opposed to merely taking options presented in front of you) is life-
altering.

Likewise, when you are used to making choices and having an effect on the
world, all sorts of things now come up. This includes the asshole (someone
acting from entitled superiority), the jerk, (someone acting as if surrounded
by idiots), and so forth.

As one of my friends put it, the "ego" \-- and by that, I speak of "the
acquired self", or "the conditioned self" \-- likes to take credit for
everything even if it is not the source of everything. That means that even
humility, modesty, charity, mercy can get hijacked by the ego. I've met
people, even meditators, for whom, the ego hijacks the spiritual development
that comes out of their practices.

One of the things the ego can hijack is that very capability of making choices
(real choice, not just taking one of the options). We have long associated the
acquired self with this idea of making choices, but making real Choice ... the
ego actually shies away from it.

It's similar to how most people don't actually want real Change. Real change
has much more to do with death. People tend to seek out novelty, instead --
apparent change that doesn't really change anything deep down.

One of the things I've been working on in the past week or so in my meditation
is the relationship between posturing and posture. Posturing happens as a
result of clashing egos. In some cases, maybe it is just one person thinking
they need to posture, while no one else is participating. The noun "posture",
though, is neutral, associated with "martial arts stance", or "yoga asana".
I've found through martial arts, there is a particular feeling that comes from
wanting to win and overcome the other person, which leads to becoming
physically unbalanced, and then the other person exploits that. My desire to
win and submit the the other person is the seed of defeat. A lot of work went
into being sensitive to balance and imbalance ... to seek out balance within
myself, to upset the balance in my opponent, to correct postures and structure
of the body, to learn how to break all of that. It's only in the last week
that it dawned on me that posturing is accompanied with the same kind of
imbalance in the emotional and social dimension, and that by simply by
dropping things to the ground, the desire to win an argument disappears.

------
endgame
Started reading, got stupid interstitial popup, left. Has anyone built a
blocker for this new breed of pop-up?

See also: [http://tabcloseddidntread.com/](http://tabcloseddidntread.com/)

~~~
doelie_
Mindfulness might help as well.

