SYNECDOCHE,

The Game of Ego

April 11, 2025

We all have an ego. I believe this to be true now more than ever. If it isn’t further evidence, it is simply telling enough that my use of “I” and “we” in the previous sentences could and would never be considered peculiar or conspicuous in a modern socio-intellectual context. I. I am this. I am that. No. Rather, I am this… Indeed, that is more me. As people, we are so deeply entrenched in what (some believe) is a self-metastasizing illusion, perhaps even a delusion, that our consciousness is attached to a self. A few days ago in class I came to the realization, as I tried desperately to understand concepts I wanted to convince myself I was “apt” enough to learn, that trying to eradicate one’s ego through the means of self-reflection (traditional psychotherapy, self help books, etc.) is perhaps in of itself quite paradoxical. Assuming one believes that ego is false reality and that consciousness exists without a self, taking the self-analysis route is like fighting a reflection in the water. So, which is it, then? Are human beings right to unpeel the layers of the self to no end, or are “we” all just fighting reflections in the water?