Stressing the importance of Ego

[rva_jeremy]

How does one work positively hand in hand with his ego? What kind of relation does an ego entertain with a shadow self?

Acceptance.  The ego for me is like your character in a video game: you will do things with and to that character you'd never do if it was your "real body".  So the ego is a continual, ongoing exercise in accepting and balancing the enemies, challenges, etc that the game is directing towards you.  Because the value of the game is not to the little pixeled avatar on the screen; it is the fun the player is having.  Without the latter, what would beating the game even mean?  And yet, without the story that contextualizes and significates the avatar's character and the story of the game, that makes sense out of the avatar's limitations relative to the game mechanics, would it be play at all?

The shadow self is, I believe, a super-potentiated ego that goes all-in on its limitations because what it loses in universality it gains in identity.  It makes the whole concept of a thing doing the controlling and thing being controlled, the subject/object dynamic, possible.