“My parents happened to me, my religion happened to me, the society too happened to me – but nothing transformed – until I happened to myself”
“I feel as if there are five to six people living inside my head; I don’t know how to keep them all happy at once!” She exclaimed
“Why don’t you let all of them explore individually and not let them create chaos in your head?” I suggested
“I don’t know; I have never done that! Are we supposed to do that?”
A human being, for most of his life, is seen as an amassment of white light, until one day he strikes through a prism, and then all his multi-dimensional colours are radiated from within him at once.
A pattern in an individual might seem too complex and intricate to an outsider. To some, it may seem unusually extraordinary, and to others, it may seem a bit useless and unnecessary. Nonetheless, for that individual, the patterns of his being mean his entire life’s worth. His entire existence seems to rest on them, and in most instances, the individual is too possessively attached to them.
Why, then, do we need such compulsive patterns?
What would happen without them?
What are these patterns, first of all?
Karl, a young adult in his late twenties, is an introverted sort of guy. Whom you would find holding together a conversation on intellectual topics or seeing him show his inclinations in the creative arena. He waged almost averagely in his professional life. He was not fond of his physical self and would often hide under multiple layers of clothing. He was quite rigid within the four boundaries of his theories on life. Still, he knew he did not belong there in total absoluteness. In relationships, he had a formulated loop: he would make the girl too dependent on his open-ended theories of platonic love but soon succumb to his inner hole of worthlessness and end up surrendering to the partner.
He continuously searched for ground to base his identity on while perpetually feeling incompetent and insignificant from within—like someone who is not capable of loving or being loved.
Only after crawling back to his childhood would we get a clearer insight into his current set-up and the patterns he has formed. Karl, if you may see, has had a very mediocrely normal childhood, with one elder sibling, his sister, whom he went along with quite well. Parents stayed together and nurtured him, fed him, gave him education, and made him ‘independent’ in terms of average societal terms.
Doesn’t it give a very idealistic view of any family? I guess only after putting the family structure under a microscopic microscope can we get the truest picture of the functioning of that family.
Our Karl had two very strong feminine energies in his house while growing up. Feminine energy can either help a man grow into a balanced individual or lead him to his doom. Unfortunately, the latter happened in this case. The dominating, competitive, and unnurturing feminine energies did not give him enough space to explore his masculinity.
The father, who was not held in very high esteem in the house, physically molested Karl on more than one occasion. Not just the father, but his sister and father, both on separate and multiple occasions, molested him physically during his early developmental stage of childhood. That left him confused about his sexuality and gender identity. He became borderline homosexual; he kept his homosexual tendencies limited to his fantasies. The confusion led to his disconnect and hatred towards his body. In his family, he remained the centre of all that was lacking in the other members of the family. He could not develop a sense of “self” and remained a toy throughout a major part of his growing up.
This generated a feeling of turmoil, inadequacy, and meaninglessness. He had self-destructive behaviour and an insecure attachment style. He would indulge in intellectual talks to deal with his reality of low self-esteem. Although he knew his intellectual side had huge potential, he remained stuck in his hopelessness of actually materialising anything valuable out of it, thinking to himself that all this was a trick to hide his insecurities and uselessness. No amount of success or achievements in any field or way would become part of my inner identity.
Karl had a potential way beyond any normal individual his age, but it remained submerged deep under the coil of a perpetual feeling of worthlessness and efforts to satiate the low self-esteem through a few creative or intellectual activities here and there, but in the end he returned back to his cocoon of his predetermined fate’s doom.
The thing that makes these patterns interesting to study is the fact that the individual is not willing to leave them despite knowing that they are harmful and disastrous to their identity. In fact, they enjoy them and derive sadistic pleasure from them. In almost all my writings, there is always a mention of a ‘split’, the division of an individual.
This duality often leaves an individual with two selves. One of which sublimates into what is coined the “superego” (Freud). The superego is the accumulation of all the morality, ethics, and standards set by the society and the culture in which the individual is born. The evaporated self (superego) often looks down upon the other ‘self’ with criticism, prohibition, and contempt and goes on to be its lifelong critic. The other ‘self’ becomes a wall of projections of all that is lacking in the superego and its contents. The ‘self,” in turn, ends up taking all the blame for all that has gone wrong. The ‘self’ ends up deriving a sadistic pleasure from all the pain inflicted on it, further entering the territory of playing a victim of the circumstances.
The individual does not want to leave these “games” (Eric Berne), as in these games he gets to play multiple characters that he cannot play in his actual life. He can play a protagonist—a hero, a villain, or a martyr who sacrifices himself for the greater cause. He develops sophisticated arrangements whereby he binds himself and his real-life experiences to them. Try taking away these deals from an individual, and he would act as if he were made to strip naked in public, looking for a new pair of clothes to cover himself up.
However, the alchemical process of transformations is continuously flowing all around an individual only if he is willing to take charge of the responsibility to first witness and then break his pattern and see outside of the cage of his lifelong conditioning. Once he gets the pulse of his own authentic vibe, he will get more tuned inwards under his skin to find his own DNA, and from there he will begin his journey of self-discovery. The patterns are not something etched in the stone but something that is imprinted on clay sand. It will require an individual to melt himself first and then reshape his entire being from the beginning. It is a process like no other; here, an individual has the rare opportunity to be in the position of a potter and shape his own pot of existential being.
The true worth of an individual remains hidden under the corpses of the personas he keeps gathering throughout his life. He cannot, after a point in time, differentiate between the character he was playing and the life that he is living outside the coliseum. He speaks in multiple voices, and he is seen in multiple personalities. Only if he could see within, recognise his patterns, and take responsibility for his broken inner child could things transform way beyond his imagination. Until then, it seems as if an individual has multiple shadows behind him of the other beings within him that could not see the light of the day.
On a macro level, the human race has gone through the tedious and magical process of evolution. If we as a whole were too stuck to our patterns of existence, it wouldn’t be surprising to find some of us still spotting a tail, walking on all fours, and living in caves. We took our challenges of survival as our process of passing through a prism and transformed ourselves from ‘insignificant apes’ to Homo sapiens, the wise men.
Such a good read !
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Thanks a lot:D
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Probably The best post which clearly showcase the life of individuals.
Keep up the good work
Your Blogs are Amazing
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Thanks a lot man! Means a lot:D
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This post actually left me speechless – I’m struggling to find words! 👌
“The true worth of an individual remains hidden under the corpses of the personas he keeps gathering throughout his life.” The concept of the Superego suppressing and dominating over the Self is a much too true one – it ultimately comes down to which of the two we choose to give all power to. That one choice will be a defining factor in the way our lives play out, in my view.
The analogy of the glass prism is amaaziing (my inner fan-girl is screaming at the comparison drawn :P)
👌❤
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Haha its always refreshing to read your comments:D
Well thats very true, although superego has its own functions in keeping the check on unrestrained instincts but overall a balance needs to be striked!
Haha yaa! Thats one my fav too❤🍻
Thanks a lot for your constant support and reassurance 😀
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It’s always refreshing to read a new post from you! 🙂
There’s nothing quite like a good, ol’ mentally stimulating conversation!
Any good books on the superego?
Also, I haven’t really studied Psychology formally so there are a huge, gaping holes in my knowledge. I was wondering, is there any similarity between the superego and Nietzsche’s ‘super man’ concept? I’m pretty sure I’ve misunderstood them both 🙈
And it’s no problem at all! Glad to be of support 🙂
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Really sweet of you:)
Even I am not a psychologist, I am a lawyer, but my passion lies into human nature, evolution and space and as well in performing arts and music!
Books for Superego would be the classic- Id,Ego and Superego by Sigmund Freud, the one who came up with the concept!
And super man is the idealistic men of tomorrow, meaning what would happen if only the best men were to survive from now and what would their qualities be!
Whereas Superego is completely different, it is theoretical concept of mind, where the child in his early days is run by his instincts and nothing else, which is his Id. As the time goes- the society and caregivers put into hin all the ethics, morals and standards which has been passing down the current from generations.
This part of his conditioning, slowly makes him independent of these external factors and he develops them within him. And that is called conscience. This conscience always looks down upon Id- who is still instinctual and compulsive and Ego here plays a mediator, who tries to strike a balance between the quarreling Superego and Id and managing the identity of an individual. Hope this helps:)
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Very interesting passions indeed! Though they are all separate interest, they are all sort of interconnected from a holistic perspective – all tying in together in one way, shape or form 🙂
Aaahhh… I see the difference between the two, thanks for the clarification! From what I understood, the Ego is a product that is “nurtured” by the societal constructs that are in place – social conditioning playing a big part on the development of the Ego, ID and Conscience.
Going by that last point you made – and an excellent one, at that! – man’s life can be seen as an ongoing battle between maintaining a balance between the Superego and ID throughout the many stages of us growing older!
Thank you for the insight, much appreciated 🙂
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Yess all connected by the holisitic side:D and yoo❤🤘 looking forward to hear from you on other posts as well:D
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Amazing anurag. Something different lyk a real life story wat exactly happens…
Great work 👍👍👍👌👌
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Thanks a lot:D means a lot! 🙂
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I loved reading this post of yours..very well depicted.. loved your superego concept🤗 wud it be awesome if you could have small stories like that of Karl to illustrate your concepts..would spice up my reading 😆
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Heyy thanks a lot:D and yes! I got this suggestion from many readers hence I started putting em. If you must have read Tabeer- colloquial interpretation of dreams. Even there I had used a dream to illustrate major dream concepts!
Thanks a lot for your suggestion! Really appreciate it❤😐
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🍻*
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Amazing! ❤️
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Thank you:)
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I’m struggling to understand, as I usually do.
What are “feminine energies?”
Why are they good?
Are masculine energies therefore bad? If so, then why?
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Heyy!
Due our culture and modernisation of society we are too stuck in gender roles.
The domination of one over the other in our society makes it very difficult to accept them in one’s own inner self. We have both- masculinity and Feminity within ourself.
And as far as the question of good and bad is concerned, it can be both positive and negative.
You should read my blog Tabeer- colloquial interpretation of dreams. I have used a case study to show how our early experiences with our parents shape our perception abt the gender roles later on.
But to sum it up, both masculinity or feminity can be positive and negative. And feminine energy per se is all that is nurturing, creative and procreating in the world as well as the other side of it (in negative) something which is shown in myths and biblical stories as someone who is witch- like and destructive.
Do visit that blog and let me know if it helped:) if not, then we shall discuss in detail!
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This was an incredibly interesting read. Very well written as well. I think you chose a very under discussed element of individuality and posed a lot of great points for me to think on. Really excellent!
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Thanks a lot:D
Yes, these things remain a hush hush in today’s pseudo intellectual world! Am really glad you could connect:) hope to hear from you on other posts as well:)
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Thanks. Nice read.
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Thanks a lot:)
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“Until I happened to myself” – very rightly said, but to most of us it happens too late in life or not at all and very few gather the courage to face it.
As you mentioned I am one of them who always lived not for myself but to be in good books of everyone around me. And the reason behind that is “following a script handed with no scope of creativity”.
My pattern of existence came to me in heriditery, as I was always taught to behave according to what society wants to see or the typical thought “what people would say”. But you and me to an extent were quite rebellious and would generally question ourselves how does it matter?
After I moved abroad I started looking back and realized there are so many more I know who can easily have the same freedom and the free life, but they are either too ignorant, fooled by the lights of festivities created by people who themselves can do nothing better, or emotionally challenged to not to leave behind their loved ones. Specially in a country like India one can live for their bosses, their relatives, neighbours “society” and if any energy left may be for themselves – that too in the name of going out for dinners or perhaps a night in khandala.
At times I feel there’s so much time of an individuals being that is just wasted.
Social media acts as a final nail in the coffin, when one pretends to be living the extravagant but is only good enough for fake likes and reactions which in reality come with a hidden smirk.
I watched a video where the theory suggested that a milestone needs to be achieved at very 2-5 years and that is where the whole meaningless competition lies in the second largest populated country where 80% people forget to live.
I really wonder is there really a way where one can stop judging themselves and find it worthy within, that he will be loved.
The feeling of sadistic pleasure arises when a persons needs and demands are not fulfilled or things don’t happen as per the plan. This is again the reason where person is always dependent for their own happiness.
This is also the energyless, lethargic behaviour that finds escape from coming over the situation by just being malancholic and not doing anything to improve it. It’s that low on energy soul who is led towards silent depression and with no scope of self rescue.
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Agreed! “it happens too late in life or not at all and very few gather the courage to face it.”
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True
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Really amazing work you’ve done here. Regards to your talent. It really does show how the individual self can be lost in a system. You really did a great job describing that because I’m sure to some extent it’seems exactly what many people feel but can’talk say. Because they can’take comprehend their own feelings. And you’ve definitely succeeded at that. Regards
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Heyy
Thanks a lot for these beautiful words! Of you liked it, you should check out my latest blog Drooling Minds- Fictions we are made to belive about Emotions. It is an extension of this post about how expression and reservation of emotions give rise to various attachment styles and more patterns!
Would love to hear from you on that post as well:D
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So true!!
Individuality is lost until we find it and let it shine. We are nothing but a sum of the expectations and voices around us till then. Very well written!
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Very true! Am glad you liked it:D
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