bradyw4557

[bradyw4557]

I just hope she doesn’t check this blog (cause I’m not ready to tell her)

I think I can experience love, I was just being silly. The only thing is I can’t tell her, cause I have this suspicion that I’m a rebound. It’s what I’ve always been, so why is this girl any different. But she is different than any girl I’ve ever been with… so I think I’ve decided to tell her. The only thing is I need to make sure all this happiness I feel when I’m with her, how she’s all I think about, how she helps me grow as a person, how I want to be with her all the time. That that’s love and not just a simple obsession I have. I think the next time I can hold her maybe then I’ll know. But maybe I won’t ever know, maybe she won’t love me back, maybe she’s still in love with her ex(I don’t think so, but it’s always a possibility). But she’s different she’s in tune with herself she wouldn’t do that to me if she wasn’t ready. But ig that’s the doubt talking(it’s always so loud).

[bradyw4557]

In love?

I’m trying to understand love. Maybe I am in love, maybe I’m not? Maybe I’m so desperate to be loved, that I crave any sort of attachment and call that love? Is it just my consciousness grasping onto what I didn’t get as a kid, but I was loved as a kid, but maybe I’ve never truly loved anyone other than my family members. Am I capable of feeling love, I’ve never experienced true romantic love, not that I know of. I’m just using this page to rant kind of, cause I can’t do it anywhere else. It’s a little disappointing, why do I think like this? I can’t let myself be in love? Why not? Good questions Brady we’ll think about tonight, and hopefully I can even cry tonight lol😎

[bradyw4557]

The Development of the Ego

Finally, to tie this series of blogs up I want to end with what I have been sort of insinuating throughout the entirety of my little blog. Socialization is the biggest component of your ego. Sure there could be a slight bit of a genetic component, but when I asked professor Rickman if she thought socialization had anything to do with your ego she emphatically exclaimed "Absolutely! Your ego is the product of your socialization." She continued by explaining "It comes down to your experiences, what are your parents like, where were you raised, what's your religious background, what's your educational background, who are your friends." That blew my mind. I had never thought of it before, how instrumental my childhood was in developing who I am and what my ego and superego look like today. I mean it was the common factor in everybody's answers it ALL depends on how you grew up. Which to me is astonishing to look back on my life and trace out the steps that developed my self-concept, and my ego/superego.

[bradyw4557]

"The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born. All of the above principles then immediately go into action, a process which social psychologists euphemistically call socialization." - Robert Anton Wilson

I think this quote relates to my personal ego, and the ego of many others, we are socialized/brainwashed to believe what we believe. (Which is scary, am I brainwashed to be me, or have I always been me?)

[bradyw4557]

The Ego in Me

After talking with my professor, the last person I interviewed was myself. It would be fun to take a deep reflection on how my superego and ego came to be. Obviously, I knew what my id was because well I'm me and I know me better than I know anybody else, so that part wasn't hard to visualize, but learning how my ego and my superego worked, was a little bit harder. So my ego's drive was fairly simple, I want to be successful, in my life, and in my relationships. What success means is different for everybody, but I want to be self-reliant, and helpful. That is my personal definition of success. I think that stems from my parents. Both of them are doctors, so I wanted to be like them, as you do when you are a kid. So I developed my ego of success from watching them, but the other part, helping people, I think stems from religion. Religion, I believe, had the most impact on my view of success. From an early age, I was told to be Christ-like. A very simple term, but with huge connotations. That constant reinforcement to be Christ-like meant I needed to be helpful, and loving no matter the person. That constant reinforcement that that's what I should be really stuck with me. Even after I had moved on from organized religion that core value of being Christ-like stuck with me. Which fascinates me even now that I'm writing this blog, why does something that I now don't believe in still have an effect on me today? To be honest I can't tell you, but I think that's just the impact of socialization as a child.

[bradyw4557]

The Human Ego in the Average Person

Now that we have all the basic terms down, I am going to demonstrate how the ego drives the everyday person. I interviewed three people for my blog, each with increasing knowledge of the topic, first was a second-year psychology major, Theresa, next was someone who had done a lot of individual research on this topic, Jess, and last was my sociology professor, who has a minor in psychology as well, Professor Rickman. When asking all these people about what is an ego and what makes up their ego, and what drives them in life, their answers were very similar. When I asked the psychology major, Theresa, she had no idea what the ego was. She assumed, just like everybody else, that it was someone being egotistical, or obsessed with themselves. After I explained what the ego was using the APA definition, she gave me a basic answer, but a respectable one. She explained that she wanted to be "successful, and respected". Which is a common answer I found, when I asked her why it was just to be "self-dependent" as she put it, but she did not share with me how she developed that want for self-dependency. Next is Jess, when asked what an ego was, she explained what I explained in my previous blog, everything about the ego, superego, and id. When asked what drives her, she told me she "to be content, happy, or satisfied". This is a different answer than the others I interviewed, so to dive deeper into this interesting response, I asked her why? "She told me early on in her life, that she felt a disconnect between her nurturers. So her inner child developed this thought that she needed to only rely on herself for her own fulfillment". This is a different answer than 3/4 people I asked (including myself), so I thought that was very interesting. Lastly, I interviewed Professor Rickman, and she had a very similar answer to me and Theresa. She described to me that "A lot of her ego or self-concept is driven by success in her work, success in her relationships, and essentially this idea that is she doing enough. That her ego is impacted more so by her failures, instead of her successes". Again just like many others, her ego is driven by success, and I wanted to know just how this sense of her ego developed. She told me that "a lot of it stems from socialization, that both of her parents are like that, she turned out like that". These responses in my opinion are interesting. They completely changed how I looked at the ego's association with socialization, which set this entire blog on a different path than what it originally was going to be.

[bradyw4557]

The Ego, Superego, and Id

While exploring the ego there were 2 other concepts I found to be inseparable from the human ego. Those were the superego and the id. In this video blog, I scratch the surface of what all of those concepts mean and how they relate to society.

[bradyw4557]

What is the Human Ego?

When I first started learning about the human ego, I knew nothing. Most people don't know anything about what the ego is. They believe it's something much simpler than what it actually is. They believe it is connected to some sort of egotistical nature or narcissism, but in reality, it's much more complicated than that. I will deconstruct your preconceived notions about the human ego, and bring this complex term down to earth. In its simplest form "ego refers to all the psychological phenomena and processes that are related to the self and that comprise the individual’s attitudes, values, and concerns" according to the APA Dictionary of Psychology. When I first read that it took me a couple times to even start to grasp what that actually meant. Basically, "your ego overall is your wants, desires, and your personality". My sociology professor, professor Rickman, actually helped me tie it down with those words. That is the simplest that I can make this incredibly complex issue, but now that I have explained what the ego is, I will explain the more intricate segments of the human ego, and what causes someone to develop their ego.