Its mostly people close to you – family, lovers (and friends to a certain extent) – that push your buttons. What would it be like to have no buttons to push? Would you still be you?
‘Being Clever’ as a description vs. an ‘identity’. Fight Club scene
If you invest your ‘identity’ in ‘being clever’ (or stake your self-esteem on ‘being clever’), you feel good when you appear clever, but bad when you fail to appear clever. On the other hand, if you don’t identify with ‘being clever’ – it doesn’t matter so much what happens.
(about 50 seconds in)
… the sweetest thing of all … (4 minutes in)
If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray.
And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.
And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.
It sometimes takes communicating a thought in writing or speech, to realise how wrong it was. Unexpressed, there’s no reality-test.
‘All’ ‘words’ ‘are’ ‘in’ ‘scare’ ‘quotes’ ‘whether’ ‘we’ ‘like’ ‘it’ ‘or’ ‘not’. ‘Qualifications’ ‘can’ ‘never’ ‘be’ ‘final’.
Belief in a separate self is the hardest religion to leave. Its much easier just to become an atheist.
If you are ‘defensive’, there must be some ‘thing’ you are defending – some thing that’s ‘worth’ all that effort to defend. That’s a reasonable inference. Isn’t it?
Comments by Peter Fonagy, Steven Hayes etc. on the ‘ego’ in the movie ‘Revolver’
Slightly longer version:
Insight Junkie 