Initial Thoughts on Ego Association

Hello guys,

With the work and attention being put into the Development Levels series, this concept hasn't receive as much TLC. But the creation of the dev levels threads themselves have been very illuminating as to what the difference is between ego and development. So I'd like to present a first rough attempt at properly defining "ego" (which we've also called 'subtype' and 'fetishization' in the past; the latter of which is not a good term for it after all. The nature of this phenomenon seems to go much further than I first imagined.) (I must also preface this by saying this may not be entirely faithful to Jung's concept of ego.. although it is not unrelated)

Difference between Development and Ego

The necessity for the decoupling of the concept of "ego" and "development" comes at a disappointment to my desire for theoretical simplicity, but is better matched to the data. In a fair degree of cases, a person's ego rests in their primary function or in a developed function, but not always... and there are sufficient exceptions to warrant proper explanation. Development, purely speaking, is a measure of ability and energetic access -- yet and has no necessary commentary on how much a function is liked or prioritized. We can think of development as working a muscle. Development grants a person the cognitive assets of each conscious EQ function. So in brief development means:

- operational availability (of its EQ talents)
- neural development/plasticity
- ease of energetic access and energetic integration

To give an example where the two may not match, we may find a person who says:
Example: A PeJi l-l- says "yea, i can Je... i learned how to Je at my last job, it was so fast pace" .."but i don't want to be a leader or change the world"

Life pressures can cause the 'exercise' of that cognitive muscle, and integrate those aspects into one's personality as available toolsets to use in any/every situation. But it says nothing necessarily about a person's commitment to that function's aspirations or goals. For example, when I've been TiNe-Ti ll-l my ego has still rested in Ti, even though I've developed Fe as an articulator function and gained the ability to hold my own in rhetoric, in debate and in having a level of agency within life.



Here is a general checklist of what these energetic "talents" are:

Development: As visually determined, relates to the capability to...

Pe:
----- ability to exist in real-time,
----- think on your feet,
----- react to change,
----- be spontaneous,
----- have wit/humor,
----- explore,
----- take in new data immediately and flow with it
----- bounce back up after a disappointment
Je:
----- ability to act, when action is necessary of you
----- to get things done
----- to speak fluently and rapidly without being clamped, having good rhetorical ability
----- ability to debate/argue effectively
----- to teach, and maybe lead if called upon to
----- to think pragmatically
Ji:
----- ability to withdraw and scrutinize inner realities for alignment to a personal 'purity' sense
----- ability to delicately parse things out
----- tendency to form castles and crystallizations
----- tendency to nurture an inner world of sound axiomatic frameworks
----- ability to form idealisms and self-identities
----- tendency to honor the self above the collective, and not yield to outer pressures
----- tendency to hold to true north despite it being impractical or outwardly 'wrong'
Pi:
----- ability to take things easy, with moderation rather than 'thirst' or ambition
----- tendency to have temperance, an appropriate sense of 'pace'
----- ability to have a panoramic view of the situation (tied to history and world events), not just the moment
----- tendency to not get ahead of oneself and be impulsive
----- tendency to avoid unnecessary risks
----- tendency to be wary, avoidant and suspicious




Now, the reason this is decoupled from Ego is because we come across individuals who lack the energetic (Ji/Pe/Pi/Je) abilities above --as well as their vultology-- but have a keen interest in a given function. For example we come across TeSi-Fi l--- ladies that are these bossy, businesswoman ....with an Fi garden in their back yard and who attend Mother Goddess native american drumming circles. They're captivated by Fi, but if you asked her about her Ji framework, ...she'd say she's too busy in her day-to-day to indulge that sort of thing. Or she may feel insights are better gained through "F"+"E" (Te+F) avenues. Learning about people and the soul through Je avenues... rather than introspection and using the self as the "one source of insight" or to have alignment come from within, rather than from outer context.

To give another example of this, we have Aurora Aksnes who is NeFi-Fi l---
Super heavy Fi myth,
but she spends all her time Pe creating, exploring and expressing that Fi myth
... rather than building an ethical/political/personal architecture of Fi beliefs

Another example is Elon Musk, who is probably TiSe-Fe l---, and if you look at his vultology he lacks any Je rhetorical prowess, he's stuttery, glitchy, lacks Je pushes, and generally doesn't shepherd or guide his audience's attention. He's not a showman or poised actor shade. Yet, he's enveloped in the idea of Fe's world-change, the Flame, and talks about how "people have to wake up in the morning with something to look forward to." His soul is invested fully in being a hero for humanity, elevating the world to a new level, preserving life. But he chooses to do this without the development of Fe charisma, and instead through the purity of alignment provided by Ti towards Fe values.

Among our very own members we have many such examples. Alerith for a while had unconscious Fe, but was motivated by an Fe phoenix myth to rise and transcend. This initially confused us since.. while I had conscious Fe, for the utility it offered me, I didn't value Fe's direction quite as much as her.

We see it also in Lorraine -- who embodies a strong Fi myth (btw ego relates to myths, which I'll get to down below) of connection to nature, of being a witch, taking in life force energy through plants, etc. Yet again Ji as an energetic asset is less present. And one last example is our member simonemusic (Joseph) who is SeFi-Ni l-l- and who has an interest in intuitive domains, but also an actual ability to see things in terms of qualia, pattern-read in the moment, think metaphorically and symbolically. But yet, he possesses none of Pi's talents for moderation, temperance, pacing, inertial slowdown, panoramic views, etc.

Ego's creation of Myth Narratives

So what is ego then? Ego is not what I used to think it was (i.e. self-perception) but is actually the aspects of your psychology that your sense of self rest in. "This is me" is the sense provided by the ego. It is where one's consciousness is seated/situated. In this case it's not really a fetishization, but a "fixation" of sorts. I don't yet know how stable this is but it seems to me it can last decades and even be present from very early childhood -- even if the ego is not the primary function.

And because of this, the ego function carries a sacred feeling to it. It is mysterious, but also a vessel into power, life, meaning, purpose. (btw: I was wrong to think fetishization was the precursor to development, as u can develop a function for a practical necessity without ever being ego fixed on it.) This felt-experience may not even necessarily be true of conscious functions, which ironically makes an ego-associated individual "more" of a narrative-driven epitome of that function's philosophy than even those who have it conscious but not ego associated.

What we have been tracking with the Mythology sections are describing this experience of ego fixation. This is why not everyone experiences the "myth" associated to a function. The archetype manifests most purely when it is ego associated. If it is not ego associated, it is.. just an operational asset of a person's neurology.

As a sidenote to some of the questions about Ti and Void lately, this is also why not all Ti-leads experience the void myth. Only a Ti-ego-associated individual experiences the Ti myth. It's possible to be TiNe-Ne lll- and not relate to the void myth at all, just to give an example.

Ego's Alteration of General Attitudes

As you may have guessed, ego-fixation also has attitudinal (N/S/T/F) consequences. Temperament is something that also needs to be given some more TLC later, as it's more important than it seems atm, but essentially if the ego is in a lower function, the person's general attitude is flipped. So someone like our SeFi-Ni Joseph will experience themselves as an ENF temperament due to what an Ni ego does to Se-lead. A pretty easy way to think of this is to say the attitude "N/S/F/T" of the ego function is assimilated, even if not the energetic quadrant. And this appears to not be a superficial thing, but an actual convergence of attitudes into a hybrid.

Similarities Between People

Because ego is where the height of people's subjective experience is, it is also where the most resonance is experienced. Not necessarily energetic resonance, but resonance of ideas and beliefs. The development levels and energetics create a kind of organic compatibility in energetic flow, but the ego fixation creates a compatibility in philosophy, life purpose, sense of meaning, etc.

Difficulty With Identifying Ego

It is not measurable in vultology, as of present.
This takes psychological evaluation, and is thus part of a psychoanalytical approach to Type that is still in the works. Generally it takes reading a person's bio and listening to them extensively, to figure out where their ego is. By default it's assumed to be in the primary function, and not everyone has a very strong ego fix.

This may be the sort of quality that may be better streamlined/aided by a psychological assessment tool, in the future.

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These thoughts are still preliminary, but seems to account for the current anomalies we've seen, and ties together the leftover variables and outliers that we've not understood before... It seems to create an entire picture of not just vultology but a person's subjective experience.

But we're not sure yet ---as we need some more evidence. The vr team is still discussing this too.

Please let me know what you guys think?

Feedback is very welcome, as we still need much more data on this phenomenon.