Genetic determinism and the ego’s role in it.
Genetic determinism is the mechanism by which genes, along with environmental conditions, determine looks and behavior.
- I could also have made the title: your horoscope and your ego’s role in it, or
- your soul correction and your ego’s role in it.
There is a lot of different ways people define ego, but what if the ego is none of those. Not what Freud called ego, not what gurus call ego.
What if the ego is simply the mechanism by which the Selfish Gene perpetuates itself… like an old dog that is unwilling to learn new tricks?
In animals, atypical behavior is rare. The “ego” calls the shot.
But humans have a choice…
So, what is choice?
Choice is, according to Landmark Education, selecting, freely, after consideration.
When you look at yourself, consideration is missing 99% of the time. Freely… is missing 99.99% of the time. So it is not that you don’t have a choice, it is not that you don’t have freedom of choice in behaviors, in your attitudes, it is that
you don’t do what it takes to actually choose.
Now, why is this not in your best interest?
When you read your soul correction, for example, the picture is somber: no real results, no real happiness, no real health, no successful relationships… given how you are wired to behave. The ego will go to bat for that.
To your genes, you having a good time, enjoying yourself, feeling fulfilled, being high minded is not relevant. Therefore the ego is not going to support that.
Not at all.
But you are not your ego…
And yet, 99.99% of your decisions come from the ego, because you are not managing yourself, you are ignorant, and you are Epicurean… meaning you give up long term view for the moment’s pleasure.
I read a call for action in my email from Avaaz today: to raise our voices against the mutilation of females in Somalia.
200 million females have their genitalia cut out around age six in the world. The parts they cut out are the parts that cause sexual pleasure, arguably the only pleasure that compensates for the cruelty of the world.
Women are reduced to slaves. Donkeys or sheep. Their job is to work, bear and raise children, and open their legs when they are told.
Women must agree with it, because 200 million women don’t fight back. I don’t mean to say a six year old should fight back. No. the mothers don’t fight back.
The Selfish Gene doesn’t care.
If this practice causes the survival of itself… it’s fine. Women don’t need to have pleasure to get impregnated and to bear and rear children.
No problem, from the point of view of the Ego of those women. It works. For them. For having lots of cruel, uncaring brood… wonderful. Survival of the fittest.
It’s OK, by the way, for the man to experience pleasure, whenever he wants. The genes don’t mind it.
The genes don’t care about a world that works for everyone… but do you?
You don’t even care about the world working for you… because you live your life in a way that avoids rocking the boat.
The most important question: is it possible to live in a world dominated by the genes and what they want, and be high minded, caring, and become a human being.
I must say: it’s not easy.
Your upbringing doesn’t support it.
Your upbringing supports you being a sheep, like the women in Somalia and other mutilating countries.
One movie that woke me up a few years ago is called Bliss (Mutluluk)… why bliss? Beats me.
It’s about a Turkish girl who is found half dead having been raped by a member of her family. She is considered dead, for the honor of the family.
A relative assigned to do the honors of actually removing her from the living. He is her second cousin, but he can’t do it.
Turns out, after a lot of drama, that the rapist was the girl’s uncle.
When you observe the girl, it is not her who initiates or causes the awakening for her assigned killer. She is resigned to her fate…
Ego, the genes, are not willing to allow individual happiness… but you, you can fight for it.
One of my favorite literary characters is Zula in Neal Stephenson’s novel, Reamde. She was born in that part of the world where they mutilate women, and treat them like cattle.
She escapes and grows up in the United States. And the same fighting spirit that got her to escape, continues and she never resigns… never acts from knee jerk reaction… a real hero. I want to be like her when I grow up! lol
But you need to know how to fight, you need to be worth a damn.
Even becoming worth a damn takes daily, often minute by minute winning over the ego.
You have ADD? You have dyslexia? You were molested? Your mother didn’t love you?
All excuses. All used by your ego to keep you in check, and keep you low.
You resign to them, like the girl in that movie to death, or like the millions of women of genital mutilation.
Wonder why humanity hasn’t risen to human being level? Why love, caring, compassion are only pretense?
Because of you. Because you expect the world, the ego to change before you will change.
You can wait in vain for another million years, or until the current humanity destroys life on the planet.
Congratulations, you always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself… Well, you are… destruction, genital mutilation, and other lovely things.
PS: The 67-step coaching is probably your only chance to take a look at how you choose to obey the genes, and to see what tools you can have to have a different individual life… even though your genes will, probably remain the same.
PPS: When someone chooses to live a life that needs additional intangible capacities, and the Life Force is strong enough to support it, they can have new capacities turned on, practice them, integrate them, so it becomes easier and easier to be a human being, instead of an obedient vehicle for the genes. A machine.
PPPS: No matter what life you choose, there is a price to pay.
You choose a life given by the genes: you’ll have to pretend to be high minded, loving, nice, etc. And pretense will kill you as surely as anything.
Because pretense is inner tension, the energy source of anxiety and fear. It kills you in the end, but in the meantime you wish you were dead…
