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I grew up like everyone else. Same types of expectations and social norms. I was unhappily married basically my entire marriage which lasted 17 years and ended a year ago. Before that I was married briefly to a long time girlfriend.

Shit fell apart in my marriage as it was destined to do. I had to accept the life I had been living was a total lie. I didn't know myself at all. I didn't know what I enjoyed, what I liked, nothing. I was alone. No friends or family nearby. Just me, myself, and I. We got comfortable together and had some hard conversations.

That led to what's called “ego death”. Ego goes bye bye when you realize your entire life is fucking bullshit. At 52 ain't no way to build a new ego. Suffice it to say when you step outside of your ego and leave it behind things change.

What does stepping outside of or destroying your ego get you? For me I went searching and still am but it's a different search than it would've been had I stayed inside my ego. Without ego, information expands. There are no blockers besides those I put in place. I have total freedom to explore as I see fit.

Not everyone can or will step outside of their ego. For me was less of a decision and more forced upon me. I made the only choice that made sense for me. Much growth in life isn't by choice, it's by force or fate. My choices, unconscious as many were, led me to this point.

I like to sum my life up in 3 parts.

  1. The pursuit of nonsense.
  2. The pursuit of knowledge and self.
  3. Yet to be lived.

If you want to explore what the ego is here's one place to start.
[psychologytoday.com]

FvckY0u 8 May 23
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6 comments

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2

I have been single a few years now.

Not having to wipe up man piss is glorious.

0

Don't beat yourself up too much. A little ego is healthy. And 3 out of 4 marriages don't work out nowadays, so your adverage. Your still young , I'm age 68, and the last 3 covid years were hell for me , now feeling a well being again. Like my old grandma said , this will pass too. I fall down, get up again! and go round, round, and round.

@FvckY0u

Good , then your not a victom.

2

I understand some of this. My first marriage came about because a few of my friends were married and I was not. I wanted to "catch up" with them. Many of my experiences in those days were because of ego. I was also pursuing nonsense but did not know it at the time. As the years passed by I was more into a desire for knowledge and today I am a sort of people watcher who can see in others the stages I was once in. Looking backward it is amazing how stupid I once was. Not sure if I'm growing today or doing a damned thing for community, my life is still all about me but I am critical of myself. Today I am a lonely recluse and not sure what life I have yet to live. I prefer peace to adventure in a world controlled by corporations who want all of us to be " a good fit" into their nonsense as they try to take over your life.

3

Good fortune with your new adventures. One benefit of the loss of excess ego, at least in my experience, is that people who lose it, no longer suffer from the fear of death. Since when you truly understand your own worthlessness, then you know that nothing will be lost when you die. That is the very opposite of the narcissist's desperate clutching to things like churches, in the hopes that their fears are both justified and not folly, but that they can also buy a "get out of jail" ticket if they spend enough.

The other big gain in my experience, is that you realize the importance of everything and everyone else. Both in: Can I appreciate it/them ? ( For the person who likes both, beef and pork, sport and art, mountains and sea, men and women, adults and children, has many times the joy.) While you also understand that any true worth you may have, only exists in how much you appreciate those things, and how large a hole in the lives of those things, your departure would leave, because your contribution was taken away.

@FvckY0u Thank you, I try.

3

Yep, when you leave the comfort zone of life as you know it, and start completely fresh, it's a good time to finally become the person you want to be!

2

Most of what you had mentioned above minus the marriage part (I've never been married) I've gotten past since my early twenties. Before that time, I too was pretty much living in a false reality, having still believed in the mystical man in the sky, and that if I had prayed hard enough to him all of my troubles would find easy solutions and everything would just fall right into place. That of course never happened, but eventually I got past what my ego wanted in favor of embracing reality, and gradually afterwards things started to improve in my life.

My early adult life briefly...

Got a job after graduating high school, and at that time I was still socially conservative and believed in being a "good" boy in order to please god. The job and the pay that went along with it was largely unsatisfying and stressful, and life was going nowhere. Then a few years later met this older woman whom I had worked with at the time, got involved with her romantically, and soon enough my whole worldview had changed. After that went rather wild socially speaking, stopped believing in god and the paranormal, hit the bottle all too often, went wild with sex and eventually got involved in adult entertainment briefly (which played a part in what I do nowadays on the side) at the suggestion of the woman mentioned above.

Then came the tamer stuff, namely the quest for more knowledge, and forming a new identity for myself, one that would last. Not sure if I've found the right identity yet or if it even means that much to me anymore. With some of the stuff I've observed over the years from my fellow human beings, not sure I really want to associate with any groups or factions, as at this point I'm fairly convinced identity politics are a truly divisive force to avoid at all costs. Yes indeed, ego can be a very bad thing, and not everyone out there can learn to get past their ego. Interesting post by the way.

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