Ego Survival

Summary

The text discusses the ego's survival instinct, comparing it to a ship rat that will fiercely defend itself when cornered, using an anecdote about a father warning his child to stay away from a barn with large rats to illustrate the point.

Abstract

The author of the text, "Ego Survival," draws a parallel between the ego's drive for self-preservation and the survival instincts of a ship rat. Through a personal story, the author recounts a childhood warning from their father about the dangers of encountering a large rat in a nearby barn. The father's vivid description of a potential rat attack serves as a metaphor for how the ego reacts when faced with the threat of extinction. The ego, like the rat, is usually content within its own domain but becomes ferocious and relentless when its existence is challenged. The text suggests that the mind, much like other living organisms, prioritizes survival above all else, and those who transcend this instinct are considered exceptional, or "Saints." The majority, however, remain survivors, with the ego being the ultimate survivor.

Opinions

The ego's primary goal is survival, much like the instincts of animals.
When the ego feels threatened, it will aggressively defend itself with an onslaught of thoughts, similar to a cornered rat attacking.
The author implies that the instinct for self-preservation is deeply ingrained in all living beings, including humans.
The text suggests that sacrificing one's life for another is rare and not typically encoded in our genes, reserving the term "Saints" for those who do.
The author uses a personal anecdote to emphasize the power of the imagination in reinforcing fears and lessons learned in childhood.
The piece reflects on the idea that most people, and especially their egos, are wired to be survivors rather than self-sacrificing individuals.

Thinking You To Death

Threaten the ego with extinction and it will think you to death

The Ego has only one mission: Survival.

When I was seven or eight, I was told by my dad — partially as a joke and to scare me, I see in hindsight, but part bona-fide warning as well — to stay away from and out of a certain dilapidated barn not too far from my paternal grandmother’s house (I can still picture it: gray, black, squat, sort of falling in on itself).

Why, I wondered.

Ship rats, he said. Then he held out his hands, about a foot and a half apart, “This size. Not including the tail.”

But it’s only a rat, I suggested. It’ll run if it sees me, for I am this (spreading my arms wide) size.

Normally, yes, he told me, that’s how it should go, if you’re lucky. But if you should, without meaning to, corner a rat this size, giving him nowhere to run, he will attack you, and believe me, not only will he bite and claw and tear, but he might also infect you with his bites and you can die from that. So, stay away. Just a fatherly suggestion.

I had a very active imagination at the time; no, let me rephrase that, my still very active imagination had already taken full hold at even before seven. So, as my dad described what could happen to me, with this ginormous rat in the dusky barn baring teeth in the far corner and now leaping at me I could feel him, all thirty, forty centimeters of him, landing on my face and biting my eyes out. Dad’s point landed, and did its job, very well.

I never went near that barn, ever. To this day this barn can proudly proclaim (if it’s still there) that it has never been as much as approached by me.

The Ego, that most cherished of all possessions, is like a ship rat: large and dark and most of the time relatively harmless in its dilapidated barn (if you consider life-time imprisonment harmless, that is) until you corner it and threaten it with extinction: furious thoughts will come flooding your way like a leaping rat and flood and flood and not let go until you back off in shock and with the promise never, ever to threaten it like that again. Ever.

That’ll learn ya.

Of course, the mind shares this trait with all living things: survival at all costs — very few will sacrifice their own life for the survival or benefit of another. That’s something not quite built into our genes now, is it?

We have a name for those who do: Saints.

As for the rest of us: Survivors. Especially the Ego.

Ego Survival

Thinking You To Death

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