Discussions in psychology

Okay, here goes attempting to put a huge ball of thoughts in my head into written form:

• Lets assume for a moment that humans all share similar instinctual drives. Maybe, they follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I am unsure, but lets follow the Enneagram model for a moment - we all share the instincts needed to protect ourselves and our identity. For example, we all have anger, which allows us to setup boundaries, we all use power which helps us to influence others, we all have envy which helps us to get approval, we all have lust which helps us get what we want, we all have sloth which allows us to not do what we don't want to do, etc.
• Okay, assuming that we share those instincts, the next thing is that we have them, are born with them, in unequal quantities. So, you may be born predisposed to avarice which helps you hold onto resources or maybe you are born predisposed to pride which helps you tell yourself that you are worthy.
• Then, based on your predisposition, which is completely unconscious as a youth and mostly unconscious as an adult, you perceive your environment through the lens of your primary instinctual drive. For example, if your primary instinct is to be driven by fear which protects yourself, than you look at your world through the lens of fear. Mine is envy. From an early age I looked at the world through the eyes of envy, looking for ways to get approval from the environment.
• Since, the environment doesn't often give us what we need, and since we don't have the intellect early on to realize that it isn't about us, we begin to feel like we are not getting that instinctual drive met. So, people who are fear based are looking for protection and they don't find it and they don't realize that it isn't about them and they begin to get scared that everything is out to get them and therefore they can't trust things and all of their habits of attention going to not trusting things and being scared of things and protecting themselves from things and AHA - the ego is born, the personality is formed.
• So for example someone driven by deceit as their instinctual drive - which protects them from the "truth" because part of the truth is very scary. So, they use deceit by putting out an image that isn't who maybe they are at the core b/c maybe they don't think who they are at the core will be loved for just who they are - one of the scary parts of truth, in many ways it is true you are not loved for who you are. And it protects them from not having to risk who they are as being valued and valuable. So as a kid, quite unconsciously they look for what will bring value to the situation and they make themselves a bringer of that value to the people that are important and use that image of value as their esteem builder. And there whole lives are spent finding ways to be valued.
• Okay, you may be asleep by now...
• My point is, we are all driven by some instinctual drive that is a combination of nature and nurture through which we view the world. I think a lot of people know that as a concept. I have no idea how many people are aware of their own habits of mind and how it might relate to some instinctual drive.
  
• What it means is that everything we do, every emotion we feel, every thought we have, everything we perceive is done through the lens of our instinctual drive and meets the base need of that drive. So, everything I do is from the point of my ego, which is built on envy and meant to meet my need of envy. Everything that a person who is anger based does is driven from the point of an ego that uses anger to protect itself and create boundaries in which to feel right and holy.
• However, there are chances, when we can look through the lens of the other instinctual drives. Those happen either accidentally or purposefully.
  
• There are moments when we connect with the larger reality of the world around us. Outside of those moments we are only seeing reality through our egoic lens. Sometimes though, we get to see things through the lens of other ego types.
  
• We do that by first observing our own egoic type, observing our thoughts, actions and feelings from an independent observing eye. This observation can tell us what our own ego structure looks like, uniquely to us. When we can understand what it looks like, then we know how we are operating. Than we can begin acting conciously , not just from habit and instinct.
  
• When we begin acting consciously and become aware of our ego and that it controls how we look at everything, we can than make a choice if we want to look at the world through a different lens. And, if we can look at the world through a different lens than we begin to see more of reality. Then we connect to the bigger whole. That is god.
  
• When we see more and more sides of reality, more and more perspectives, than we begin to approach a perspective that is more whole. The wholeness - or holiness - are the moments when we are connected to the rest of the universe. Because, in those brief and rare moments when we can see what others are perceiving, not through only our eyes, but maybe through their eyes as well, through their motivations, through their instincts, than we see reality as all of us see it.
  
• And, when we take that collective reality, that is all of reality.
  
• So, that is a lot of Enneagram regurgitation, but it makes sense to me. It will be part of my psychological studies.
• The cool thing is, how using the Enneagram as a tool, I can begin to understand just a glimpse of what it might be like to look through someone else's worldview, as they uniquely hold it. And, understanding that I can help bring awareness on their worldview and maybe help them find in life whatever they are looking for. If that is what they want. And sometimes I do it because it is what I want. Because then they will approve of me.
  
• It all comes full circle ...