An Intellectual Journey to Authenticity
Unraveling the Ego
Every body has an ego. Have you ever wondered to yourself just how big your ego is? Or how much your ego shapes your reality? The concept of ego has become a formidable force shaping our lives. But what exactly is ego, and how does it impact our relationships, aspirations, and the way we perceive ourselves? Unraveling the layers of this complex psychological construct, we embark on a journey to explore our most authentic selves.
Ego: The ego is considered a false self because it is constructed by societal conditioning, personal experiences, and cultural influences. It is seen as a superficial layer of identity that obscures the deeper, more authentic self.
During the pandemic lockdown, I created a painting that reflects a time when I was struggling with my identity. As the world retreated into isolation, I was forced to do the same. This left me with ample time to reflect on my thoughts and habits. The pressure of the demands of school and work were gone. I realized that I was neglecting an inner part of myself that yearned to be acknowledged - my ego. This part of me was heavily focused on superficial aspects like the latest trends or my social media status, rather than who I genuinely am. Amidst the silence of pandemic lockdowns, a hidden opportunity for self-discovery emerges.
Observe your mind,
watch your thoughts,
Who’s living in your head?
Is it you? Or your ego?
An image of yourself that you identify as…
Have you lost your mind yet?
This painting resembles an eye, which represents what I envision as the space behind my eyes where my thoughts shape my perception of reality. I gave this room a couch and a chair because that is where my thoughts reside, hence the phrase “Who’s living in your head?” If your ego occupies this space, it influences how you view the world and how you perceive yourself.
While painting this piece I continually found myself examining my responses to the age-old question, "Who am I?" Gaining awareness of my ego enabled me to get more curious about myself. Do my beliefs and values makeup my identity? If so, what validates my beliefs and values? Where do they come from? How have my experiences shaped my perception of them? Despite my efforts to discover my true identity, I seem to only delve deeper into the complexity of the question. Upon reflection, I realize that much of my identity has been influenced by factors such as culture, religion, and education - all of which were instilled in me from an early age by elders of my community. Reflecting on the question, I am reminded of my experiences during my formative years and the relationships I’ve had that shaped me into who I am today.
Curiosity
The community where I grew up has had a significant impact on my development and identity as an individual. I believe in nurturing children's natural curiosity rather than punishing them for it, as they are inherently free and open-minded. Embracing curiosity and an open mindset has led me to experience valuable lessons that are deeply ingrained into who I am today.
Many people have heard or used the phrase “curiosity killed the cat.” The phrase is very logical but it’s not the answer to every solution. It implies that you should not try to satisfy your curiosity because it can lead to unnecessary trouble. However, Nathan King in his book The Excellent Mind provides the reader with multiple explanations of how curiosity can be an intellectual virtue instead of a vice. He argues that the intention or “appetite” of our curiousness determines the structure of curiosity between vices. For example, King states “To be virtuously curious, we need to maintain a healthy intellectual appetite—a healthy desire for truth, knowledge, and understanding.”(King 41). King expresses that, in order for curiosity to be exercised as a virtue there needs to be a drive for knowledge. The motivation behind a curious motive has to be fueled by a wanting for truth. As a child, having someone to guide my process of curious thinking allowed me to explore many truths.
Growing up in the Christian community, I often questioned the existence of God and the commonly portrayed physical appearance, race, or gender. Unfortunately, my inquiries were often met with fear-based responses. Most people thought that I was sinning by questioning my faith in god. Yet, I grew more curious.
C.S. Lewis, an influential writer sets out on a quest to encourage this intellectual appetite about god that could be controversial. In his book The Problem of Pain, Lewis engages the reader to find deeper meaning in their faith rather than resorting to fear-based thinking, from a Christian perspective. In the first few chapters of his book, Lewis makes an argument for the defense of theism in a world with evil and pain while also questioning god’s goodness. For example, Lewis wrote “If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished” (Lewis 16). Lewis proposes ideas that people usually have about God before offering his own answers. He mentions God’s omnipotence and goodness to support his idea of pain being inevitable due to our free will.
The way Lewis visits topics of God resonated with me and my curiosity. However, my questions seemed like a resistance to my community and I wanted to know why, which sparked my interest in learning about other cultures and religions. King agrees that the desire one has to question ideologies is important to using curiosity as a virtue. For instance, King wrote “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality” (King 39). Reading both texts has given me the inspiration to start having limitless questions again, even if they might not always be accepted. I am reminded to Return back to my true nature of being curious and to never stop questioning life as long as my pursuit stems from a place of wanting truth and knowledge.
The influence of relationships
After reading King's book, I've become more aware of how I implement the virtues into my life and my relationships. I have been guided and influenced throughout my entire journey of figuring out who I am. I have discovered that my relationships is where I embody certain virtues the most.
Majority of my time is spent with family and friends, my identity is heavily impacted by our interactions. Growing up everything I’ve learned about the world has been taught to me through connections. Fortunately I’ve always been encouraged to be expressive about questioning my roles in life while growing up. I learn the most in conversations because there are no distractions from our phones and my thoughts aren’t limited depending on who I'm with. A space is created for our voices to be heard, when our opinions are of value. This is very important to me because the thoughts that I would usually keep in my head can now be brought up in conversation and expanded upon.
Making connections and having intellectual conversations allow me to be open to new beliefs and perspectives. The Excellent Mind has allowed me to become aware of how the influence of relationships make up parts of my identity. Learning the virtue of being intellectually open-minded throughout these relationships has made them transcendental.
“We can consider views other than our own in order to understand them better or to clear away our misconceptions” (King, 207)
King believes that open-mindedness can also be an intellectual virtue. King provides the reader with multiple definitions of being intellectually open-minded, which I think is a virtue my relationships tend to embody. King explains intellectual open-mindedness as being “willing and (within limits) able to transcend a default cognitive standpoint in order to take up or take seriously the merits of a distinct cognitive standpoint.”(King 204). King defines intellectual open-mindedness as a person that is capable of considering other viewpoints including the ones we disagree with. By being open to other standpoints I notice what beliefs I am attached to and how it affects my ego.
I learn more of who I am through being with others that are open to incorporating both virtues into the relationship. By spending quality time with my friends, our curiosity is allowed to be free and roam through our conversations making them profound. The relationships we build with people reflect the relationships we have with ourselves. Many people have a misperception that self-discovery requires you to be alone. While alone time is beneficial, I have learned many depths of who I am through others as they are reflections of me. Building a community of friendships and relationships that incorporate these virtues is shown throughout a 1937 novel by Zora Neale Hurston called Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a classic of the Harlem Renaissance, a Southern love story of Janie Crawford. A young girl coming into her womanhood searching for true love and her authentic self. One of the relationships that stood out to me was her relationship with her best friend Pheoby. Pheoby played a significant role in Janie’s life, Similar to my friends, she allowed Janie to be intellectually curious. She held conversations with Janie instead of assuming about her life as most people did in the town of Eatonville.
Pheoby defending Janie, (example of Phoeby not being gluttonous) page 3
Most of the people in Eatonville are envious, or as King would say, gluttonous because of Janie due to her appearance and her previous status of being the mayor's wife. Pheoby interrupts this single story of Janie by shutting down their only negative perception of Janie. By doing this, Pheoby strays away from King's definition of gluttonous curiosity. When the townspeople are talking about Janie in the beginning of the book they are embodying gluttonous curiosity. They know nothing, yet assume all the wrong things creating false perceptions of Janie. Pheoby becomes curious and provides the reader with a different perspective of Janie when she makes an effort to truthfully get to know Janie instead of judging her with the others.
This event in the book reminds me of the importance of remaining intellectually curious, even when it is easier to judge based on one perspective. If it wasn’t for Pheoby’s curious actions the reader wouldn’t truly know Janie. This event in the book reminds me of how I questioned my Christian community. If I didn’t question the ideology of god, I wouldn’t really know my connection and relationship to God, which is a big part of my identity.
Quote from Janie Page 89
Through their relationship, Janie is able to learn more about herself by having a genuine connection with Pheoby. Janie was able to confide in Pheoby about her recent discovery of freedom and true independence after Jody, one of her ex-husbands, passed away. In this part of her life, Janie had the time to reflect on how her relationships shaped her into who she has become. In particular, she reflected on how she was negatively impacted by her grandmother while growing up. Hurston states “Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God had ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go a horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her.” (Hurston 89). The horizon symbolizes her wishes, ambitions, and endless possibilities for growth and transformation.
When reading this section of Janie’s life, she reminds me of myself as I think back to past relationships and experiences that have shaped me into who I am today. By reflecting on her past and how she grew up, Janie was able to realize the mindset of her grandmother caused her to be raised in a way that was not the best. This was a perfect example for me to consider when reflecting on the question “Who am I”. Her deep reflection causes me to think further and analyze the behaviors and experiences I’ve endured while growing up.
This epiphany in her life represents Plato’s "Allegory of the Cave" as Janie frees herself through the discovery of liberation. Plato, a Greek philosopher introduced the "Allegory of the Cave" in The Republic. The Republic features a dialogue of Plato speaking through Socrates, which is his teacher. In book 7 of The Republic, Socrates depicts a dark cave where prisoners are only able to see the wall in front of them. Behind them, a fire casts shadows of objects from the real world outside the cave. They mistake these shadows for reality, but if one were to leave the cave, they would gain a deeper understanding of reality.
Socrates explaining the cave to Glaucon in Book 7, The Rebublic
When Janie is young she gets a glimpse of what the outside of her cave looked like, the horizon was her view. The journey back to the horizon was a driving force to the journey back to herself which represents Janie leaving her cave. Unfortunately, she was discouraged early on, as I was, by the community she was raised in. Janie realizes that she hated her grandmother for dragging her back into her cave by crushing the childlike curiosity that made life so enjoyable and vast to her. Janie explains this by picturing her grandmother choking the horizon around her neck.
This reminds me of my childhood curiosity. Plato's allegory of the cave illustrates my journey towards self-discovery. My ego was the "cave" that held me captive with materialistic and social media concepts. During the pandemic lockdown, I discovered that I was living a false life. I was trapped in my own mind. After reading Plato's allegory, I realized that my painting had become my own version of the cave. Since then, I have been on a quest to find my true self and escape the cave, similar to Janie’s search for her authentic self.
Janie resembled the prisoner from Plato's allegory as her relationship with her grandmother kept her confined at the beginning of the story. Through processing her relationships, Janie uncovered pent-up emotions that enabled her to see that she was in a cave and view how she was influenced growing up. Janie reminds me of myself in some aspects of self-discovery. Janie discovers the path to her authentic self through the lessons of her relationships. She navigates her journey through relationships that remind her of the horizon, her way out of the cave.
Journey
The texts discussed throughout this blog share a common theme of self-discovery, a journey with no deadline. Both Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Republic highlight the importance of introspection for personal growth and offer insight into the journey. Plato’s allegory of the cave gave me a visual of what my “cave” looked like and how my ego was my cave. Reading Janie’s story of escaping her cave and finding liberation within herself inspired me. Meanwhile, The Excellent Mind by King and The Problem of Pain by C.S Lewis provide invaluable guidance for navigating this lifelong journey. The intellectual virtues that King mentions in his book guided me in my relationships and the way I incorporate lessons into my life. I have learned to be intellectually intentional on this journey. The problem of pain has encouraged me to apply being intellectually curious and open-minded to my inquiries on this journey. May these texts inspire us all to embark on our endless journey of self-discovery and continual development.