EGO

Ego. What the heck is that? We tend to see that in our daily life. Most of us have daily confrontations with Ego, in terms of our own self ego, ego of our bosses, ego of managers, ego of restaurant waiter, ego of our professors and so on.
Thesaurus lists the following definitions for Ego:

• "The self, especially, as distinct from the world and the other selves"
• "An exagerrated sense of self importance".
• "Appropriate pride in oneself, self-esteem".

On a philosophical note, Sri Ramakrishna comments on Ego as "You cannot conceive, think of perceive God, otherwise than as a person, so long as you are a person with Ego of your own". In the same vein, Sai Baba define Ego as "Edging God Out".

All the above definitions underline "Self", which keeps popping up as self importance and self esteem. According to anthropology and sociology research Ego plays a very important role in defining who we are. Ego identifies the central character of every human being; what he relates himself to, what he thinks he knows best, what he thinks he can do best and so on. But it is Ego which acts as one of the major resource wrecking havoc in the society. See around yourself and think of the last time you had a problem with your boss, your mom/dad, your neighbor, your teacher, the restaurant waiter who suggested something for you etc. Everytime somebody passes a comment on you, it is your Ego which gets directly punctured. The comment spears into the authority on which you are built upon and which you have advertised to others. Once the initial blow has been inflicted upon your Ego, our brain would kick in the survival training part, which has been pre-programmed as a by product of our evolution process. We go into a defensive mode, trying to confront the person who has ridiculed the basic identity of who we are. Thus, forcing us to retailiate and starting a tirade of passing comment on the opposite person. After that the problem takes the road deep south.

How can be tackle our Ego? Well, we need Ego but we should also control it. We need to defend our Ego if we know that it is correct ethically, morally and factually. Well, as a starting point thats what our parents and books we read in our childhood has taught us. In Sangam Tamil literature, there is a quote that Pulavar Nakeerar didnt budge from his stand that Lord Shiva was had factual mistake in his poem and stood by it. He seem to have passed on a comment on Shiva saying "NetriKan thirapinum Kutram Kutrame", hearing which Lord Shiva burnt him. Lord Shiva then resurrected Nakeeran and appreciated him for being strong even in front of the Lord. But does that work in our practical life?

For the last 6 months I had an interesting experience of playing with my Prof's Super Ego. For a stupid reason (of the department not designing the course correctly), I had to re-take a course (under a new prof), even after me getting an A during the first time. The new Prof came from a different background, had different understanding of research methods used in my field (Information Systems) and most of all had no idea of what my field is about. Here I am in the class, where 4 students are from IS and one from management. Even before the course had begun, the prof had been strongly instructed by the IS department on what to teach and what not to teach. Before going any further, I should also let you guys know that we are talking about a full Prof and whose terrible stint as a teacher was well known to all the departments. Still, she was asked to teach to students. Why? people in the IS dept thought it was not their duty to teach that course. Other smart departments like Finance and Accounting instructed their students not to even think of taking that course. Anyways, the course was supposed to teach the students an overview of Quantitative and Qualitative methodology. In the first class, the prof comes with a syllabus which has 95% of classes devoted to Quantiative methodology and 5% to qualitative methodology. And here I am, who have taken mutiple classes on the subject and wanted to learn qualitative more. Anyways, I tried to keep quiet in the class, hoping she would teach qualitative methodology. She never completes any of the material and through the whole semester is stuck up with Surveys. Then comes up with the term paper. When 4 others in the class chose a quantitative paper, i chose a qualitative approach with a noble cause of learning it from the semester. I seldom realized that the prof neither knew it or was ready to accept she didnt know. Comes the end of semester, I am given a C. The reason, I didnt understand the methdology. Who comments on it? A prof who expected Stats in qualitative paper, expected hypotheses in Exploratory study? But who to question her. Having bought up with values, and to stand up to it; I was caught up inbetween throwing my values out of the window or stick by it, keep a C and retake the class. My fellow colleagues did ask me to do the unthinkable "Kneel down and suck it up...". I just kept on collecting reseach to prove that I am right and she was wrong; proved it and finally got a B. Well, what was my fault in this whole process? Stuck with the truth or challenging a Professor that she was wrong and deliberately screwing my grade? When I tell this to my advisor, he said "Welcome to real world" and learn to live up to it. Gosh, if thats the case why did my mom teach me Bharathiyar's "Nimirdha nanadai, Ner konda parvai, Nilathil yarkum anchadha nerigalum"? May be this is what I should expect, if i had to stick up to truth, i.e. path full of challenges. Huh ! I again remember Bharathiar's song for this "Nallothor veenai seyvom. Adhai nalam keda puludhiyil erindhu vetom. Solladi Sivasakthi, endha sudar migum arivudan ennai padaithai"...