Egoic Structures - No. 48
“Most of what we think just isn’t so.” - Larry Mills
There are many things in our culture that are accepted as immovable “realities” that are actually just collectively accepted ideas. More than just being ideas, they are wrong or, at the very least, untrue. We take most of these completely for granted and never think twice about them. That is because we are taught in a million different, often subtle ways that these things are true. I call these culturally accepted false realities Egoic Structures. Most of these false realities our society takes for granted only exist because of human ego. When I use the word “Ego” I am referring to both our over inflated sense of self and our sense of individual identity that comes from how we see ourselves in comparison to others. In this note I will walk you though some examples of ego structures, the role they play in our lives and why it matters that we recognize them.
Egoic structures are formed and reinforced as a result of our broken cultural paradigm for life. Much of that paradigm is driven by an economic engine. Our cultural wealth depends on consumption, so many of the societal ego structures we come up against are directly tied to encouraging us all to buy more stuff. Transactions drive the economy, and without them, everything slows down, but the mental landscape we have built in order to drive excessive consumption is mind-blowing. And all of it comes back to one simple question humans have been wrestling with for a very long time, “What will people think of me if…?”
Green grass yards
Growing up in North Carolina and living in a neighborhood, I took green grass yards for granted. My assumption was that everyone had them and never thought twice about the need or role of green grass yards at our homes. I grew up cutting the grass and took pride when I could get the lines just right so that it looked really professional. Every year, we would aerate and fertilize the yard. I even collected a few different mowers that people were throwing away and repaired them.
Four years ago, I moved to the Texas Hill Country, and our water comes from a well. When we bought our house we envisioned the massive green grass yard we were going to have and the fun we were gonna have playing with the kids in it. Unfortunately, Texas has been in a drought for a long time, and it affects the production of people’s wells, including ours. Suddenly, I realized that we would have nowhere near enough water for a yard the size we envisioned. This whole struggle led me to begin thinking critically about the American yard. Something in my head has said my kids can't have the childhood they need if we can't have the yard we want. I still want that big, beautiful yard, but I've come to understand that most of what I think about a green grass yard is a cultural ego structure, not a reality.
Yards as we know them today in neighborhoods across America were not the expected norm for all of human history until the 1940’s and 1950’s. It began as a status symbol imported from Europe in the 18th century. It only became widespread in America after technology and heavy marketing made it seem normal and desirable. I was shocked when I unwound this idea of the American yard. It turns out that what drove the widespread adoption of green grass yards to become the culturally expected norm is just ego. Yes, they are nice to play in, and I still want my big green yard, but the reality is that the American yard is simply an ego structure. The American lawn and landscape economy is well over a 100 billion dollars a year. How did a luxury item become the cultural default? Ego led a nation of people to want to show their status through having the right yard.
Here are a few other examples of similar egoic structures.
Clothes and fashion
Fast fashion has created a growing problem in the world today. Culturally, we buy an inordinate amount of clothes because of how they look and not their quality and long-term function. Many of these kinds of clothes aren’t designed to last because their only purpose is to be the latest trend or style at the cheapest cost possible. 92 million tonnes of clothes and textiles are discarded each year globally. Many articles of clothing are only worn about 7-10 times before being discarded. The number of times an average piece of clothing is worn has declined by 36% in the last 15 years. Our cultural obsession with appearing stylish has created a society that increasingly sees clothing as a fashion statement and status symbol.
When we toured the Biltmore Estate last year with our kids, I was shocked to hear that the residents and guests would often change clothes 8 times a day. Apparently, everything they did had a different outfit. Most of the clothes they wore were elaborate and hard to put on, so they had servants who helped them change clothes throughout the day. More importantly, the clothes they wore looked very uncomfortable. I couldn’t understand why, with all the money they had, they wanted to force themselves into a life of constantly hopping in and out of uncomfortable clothes. I asked about this, and the answer was that they were adopting fashion trends and status symbols from Europe. Fashion as a status symbol is not a new idea, but it has always been a bad one. Think of the countless people who have spent their lives wearing uncomfortable clothes in order to “fit in” or show that they are somebody.
“We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t know.” - Larry Mills
Achievement at all costs
“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, "Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” - Attributed to the Dalai Lama
Western culture values success to a toxic level. Every day, millions and millions of people get up and give their life energy to achieve something they believe is meaningful. Often this is a job title, an income level, or growing their company. When we pull back the curtain on all of this, we find that most of the really important accomplishments people give their lives to don’t really change their lives in a truly meaningful way. Sure, they can buy a bigger house and be more respected in their community, but what makes those things worth trading so much energy and attention for so many years? The answer again is simply ego. Success and achievement are cultural structures created by egoic desires that have become virtually unquestioned expectations. We have even somehow managed to let success thinking infiltrate our faith communities.
If we could somehow unlearn these toxic ego structures, then we would be able to look at things as they really are. Will having a bigger house actually make my life better? Do I really care if more people know about me and think I am successful? At the end of the day we live, and we die. The question is not how high I climbed the corporate ladder or what status symbols I collected. The question is who did I become, and as a result, how did I positively impact the world around me, however large or small that is.
We could keep listing examples all day of ego structures that have been created by a desire for status and identity that, in reality, make very little sense and have very little intrinsic meaning. When we look at the world through the lens of ego structures, many things we once took for granted will start to seem rather foolish. I encourage you to try out this lens as you go through your life. You will find that it applies to what we drive, our houses, restaurants, work places, neighborhoods, social clubs, churches, entertainment, and politics. Most of the world we live in is a creation of egoic structures that lead us all to do lots of things that don’t really make any practical sense. In fact, the only reason they seem to make sense to us is that they are so commonplace that we take them for granted.
Why this matters
I am not saying we should all bail on society because it is built on egoic structures; I am saying we should be aware and deeply evaluate the effect these accepted realities have on our thinking and lives. Likely, the pursuit of more is costing us the ability to be present with ourselves, others, and God. When we begin the process of overcoming our ego, we will begin to run into these ego structures in our own minds, as well as, in our relationships. As we die, we lose the attachment we once had to things like status symbols, and success markers. We begin asking very real questions: What do I really want? Who am I really made to be? What role was I uniquely created to play? Eventually, we find that things we used to want very badly are no longer that appealing to us.
When we strip away the meaning our culture places on so many of these things, we find that they are just a collection of materials designed to perform a task. A house is just a place to live; what kind of floors, appliances, and furniture we have don’t really matter. Whether or not we have stone countertops, hardwood floors, or walk-in showers doesn’t really change our lives in any meaningful ways. They simply make us feel good because of an ego structure in our minds about what makes a house “nice” and what it means about us if we have one.
Consider what we are afraid of when we start to evaluate the possibility of losing our job or income. Usually, our first concern is, “What will people think of me?” We usually aren’t really afraid of not being able to put food on the table. Thankfully, in America, if you are willing to work hard, there is usually another job you can find. The bigger issue, I think, is that we worry about losing the lifestyle we currently have and the status markers that come with it. If we had to downsize our house, get older cars, and stop eating out as much, then the voice in our heads tells us that would mean we are a loser.
The social ego structures all around us create a prison that we voluntarily trap ourselves in. We just usually can’t see it for what it is. I have battled these same structures and the hold they had on my mind. I would like to say I am totally free from them but I am not. However, the farther I go down the path of ego death, the more freedom I find. It’s weird and freeing to see a house as just a house and a car as just a car and someone’s fancy clothes as just clothes. We attach meaning to so many things that make them appear completely different to us. I used to want a Porsche someday, but now I just see a very impractical vehicle. I can appreciate them as art, but I personally don’t want one the same way I did before, and they no longer have the meaning attached to them they once did.
When I give up ego structures, I also give up the validation they provided me and my false identity. The Porsche to me was a sign of success that would mean I was “somebody,” it had become more than just a car. When we go through ego death, we start to detach from some of the structures our culture is built on, and we begin to live from a different reality. We find that we are able to be present in our real life, free from what Larry Mills calls “the prison of want.” We can see things as things but not confuse them to be more valuable or meaningful than they actually are.
I am convinced that who we were each created to be is outside of the egoic structures our culture is built on. Those structures run on a belief that you are not enough and that there is never enough. So every day, billions of people get up and spend their days trying to prove through accomplishment and status symbols that they are enough. Every step of the way, they build their own tiny empires, amassing whatever resources they can in order to make sure they have enough.
When we overcome our ego in a meaningful way, we are stepping into a different reality. We are letting go of our false identity built on lack and into our true identity created by God. In that reality, we are enough because He says we are enough, and we have enough because we trust Him. The world’s ego structures can’t hold us when we stop living in the world of lack and step into the abundance of God’s Kingdom and the true identity we are made for.
- John Walt
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