Ego Amo Te

The English word ego is the Latin word for, “I”.  Literally translated, ego means "I". If you were to write, "I love you" in Latin, you would write "ego amo te"

It's interesting how people feel  the need of having that triumph over you. Why does that happen? It probably comes from some trauma where the person did not feel as important. So they have to really hold up that part of themselves to say, “I am important.”

Perhaps what we need is rituals in our society where when you do something (you accomplish something) that you have a party about it, like a ceremonial "yay. I did it!”

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Fawn: [00:00:00] You who can help you? It's you and me, baby. Oh, yay. It's been awhile since goodness.

Matt: [00:00:08] Wait, wait. We've actually started. I thought we were doing another

Fawn: [00:00:12] . Oh dear. You ready? Do you have any idea what I'm going to bring up today? I think it could be ego. It could be it's ego, ego. Okay. Brought to you by our lovely sponsors.

We don't have any sponsors, but brought to you by some experience we had the last week.

Matt: [00:00:35] Oh dear. So I take it. We're just going to go for it then. Right. Well

Fawn: [00:00:38] kind of going to go for it without naming any names. All right. So today is people and their ego. All right. And you've had to deal with that because of your work situation.

Right?

Matt: [00:00:52] Okay. So it's my fundamental belief. I mean, as a, as a computer programmer, you know, we sit at a keyboard, we [00:01:00] type some random gibberish in and things happen and we build things that people use and people say, wow, this is great. Thank you so much. And people find bugs and make us feel bad. And then we fix the bugs and that makes us feel good.

Computer programmers are incredibly credible egomaniacs because we do this. We build for a living and we get all these strokes and we get all this other stuff.

Fawn: [00:01:23] You know what everybody, every industry has that every industry has the ego everywhere you go. There is ego. And I have a theory about that. My theory is when people are not heard and they don't feel seen that's when things get out of hand with the ego.

Okay. Here's the atomology of ego that will actually bring some light to this. What I'm talking about? Ego.  The English word ego is the Latin word for, I literally translated ego means "I", if you were to write, "I [00:02:00] love you" in Latin, you would write "ego amo te"

Matt: [00:02:08] god, that's very aside from the word ego, that's very similar to like Spanish.

So

Fawn: [00:02:12] some guesses and then where Spanish comes from. Hello, Latin. All right. So we, we, we, I don't know how to say this, but recently we came across a major ego.  And it was painful.  It took me a while to get over it. I had Tourette's in the shower. I was walking around the apartment, like just bursting things out loud.

Like I, I was initially so hurt. I felt spanked by this person. Right. And it was so we were trying to figure out what it was. And really, even though this person came across or appears out in the world as like, uh, a very [00:03:00] substantial, knowledgeable together kind of person, it was, I realized, wow, this person is in pain and they want to be heard.

And perhaps we didn't stroke the ego wanted or expected us to, because we're not an interview type body. This is a conversation we're not here to interview you like that. Right. We're here to have conversation person to person and see where it goes, human being to human being life experience, to life experience.

And so anyway, it just felt like it went awry. And we haven't aired this episode, but oh my God, it was, it was, it was something else. But I think it had to do with ego. And I think that this person, you know how sometimes we look at [00:04:00] people and I'm like, look at that, they're stuck on age, such and such. Oh yeah.

Right. You can look at someone and you can see no matter how old they are, you see a seven year old or a nine year old, whatever happened in life that really made an imprint whatever age that was, people tend to get stuck there and then live forever as that person at that age quote, unquote age. Right.

Right. I now looking back on it, this person, how old do you think they felt. Like nine, eight.

Matt: [00:04:36] This is the problem. Cause I always say I own my inner eight year old.

Right.

Fawn: [00:04:40] But there is a difference here. This has to do, I think my personal opinion is it has to do with trauma, something wasn't met. Right. Do you know what I mean?

So they're forever. In that not knowing it consciously feeling the scarcity and living in that. And it becomes an [00:05:00] obnoxious eight or nine-year-old rather than a fun eight year old. What do

Matt: [00:05:05] you think? Thank you, baby. For, for inferring, at least then I'm a happy eight year old.

Fawn: [00:05:10] Yeah. I mean, that's what you are and that's what you say, right?

That's why it's fun. Cause he like, when you think of things we should do, it's the inner eight year old that brings up those ideas and we have fun with it. But how do you, cause I mean, I don't think I do this very well, like with this, with this person. I mean, I don't. It, it, it hurt me so much that it took me a while to even burst into tears.

I mean, I was so hurt by the way, this person lashed out at us. And I feel like in lashed out at me in particular, because I was the main culprit in his eyes as far as not giving  what this person needed. And I think it had to do with roles in who we [00:06:00] are as man woman. So, because I was the woman and I feel like I got the brunt of it.

Do you know what I mean? I think there was some of that playing into some of that patriarchal stuff. Happening as well

Matt: [00:06:14] at that, that's an easy, easy place to go for sure. I think it's easy to play that  but we don't really know what was going on inside of him.

And, and I felt like, you know, he took, he took vicious swipes at me to him or her. Oh, we don't know. They took their vicious swipes at

Fawn: [00:06:31] me. Yeah. But not as much as they took it at me at the end, my God. Yeah.

Matt: [00:06:36] But you did a majority

Fawn: [00:06:37] of the talking. Well, that's what I do. And if you, if you can't hold your own, That's on you.

That's on you. Hi everyone. We're here to have a conversation. If you can't carry your conversation, then you should be comfortable with not saying as much. Don't put it on me. I'm not controlling your mouth and I'm not controlling your [00:07:00] brain. I have a, I have something to say. I'm going to say it. And it is just incredibly also.

Uh, touching to me that men in particular feel offended or someone that has more of a male ego about their personality feel so offended by me because I had a lot of opinions and I may not have all the degrees from, you know, the major universities in the world, but best believe I have experience and I've done my work.

So I know what I'm talking about. And I don't appreciate that patriarchal. Uh, see, I

Matt: [00:07:41] would've gotten paid,

Fawn: [00:07:43] but how can you stand where they come? Oh, patronizing patronizing. Thank you. It comes from the patriarch Patri lair.

I think

Matt: [00:07:57] that's a kind of tequila

[00:08:00] Fawn: [00:08:01] patronizing. That is so true. So, I mean, at the end of the podcast, this person lashed out and said, this is after they, they thought we were the coolest thing. They said, well, you're not, you're nothing but a podcast. You're nothing but a podcast. And you, you're not really doing anything in the world.

Bringing community together. That's what this person said to me, looking at me right there through the computer, looking at me. So here folks, friends out there, I mean, and all the countries listening to us, by the way, France, you are number one outside the United States, France is our biggest, biggest listener and Tunisia,

Egypt. We've got Australia. We have we're we're everywhere right now. And I want to thank [00:09:00] everyone, but here's my, here's my request of our friends out there. Please help us expand this community. I want to prove this person wrong. We are doing something. We're bringing them back conversation, which does not happen in our society right now. And even before all the strife, the past few years, people didn't really talk. And I think that's what created all the problems that we are having in the world and things are I've. It feels like things are just exploding everywhere, blowing up, and please help me prove this person wrong. We are a community, please.

Can you reach out to me? All you have to do is go to our website and send me an email.  I want to do something with that. We started to do before the pandemic, before the podcast, we were going neighborhoods to neighborhood, creating community through the arts, through just [00:10:00] seeing each other.

But it's just perfect actually the way things have worked out with a podcast, because I always wanted to start worldwide. Because of this podcast, that's how it's happened. And I want to create, I want to create the community worldwide for real now. So let's just start with emailing each other, emailing me.

First of all, I want to create something. If you have any ideas of your own, please let me know. It does not matter what country you're in. So go to our friendly world.com. You know, there's the, also the other one, our friendly world podcast.com. Just go to our friendly world.com and let's, let's prove this person wrong.

I think we are onto something here. We wouldn't have so many friends. We wouldn't be in the top percentage of podcasts around the world. If we weren't, [00:11:00] I'm a little, I feel a little bit heated. Let's

Matt: [00:11:02] circle back to how to deal with. Monster egos or even, you know, little baby

Fawn: [00:11:09] egos. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to turn to you most because I either cry or I'm like nuts to this "BYE" like, I can't deal with it.

Right. You can deal with it. And, uh, and really, because I think you have to,

Matt: [00:11:24] right. That is a part of it. And it's also the, also the other part of it is, uh, you know, I think that. In most of the friendships I have had there is that natural dynamic there always wants to be the alpha and the beta. And that's just kind of how it goes.

I don't know if that's typical in male friendships. I don't know if that's only typical in my friendships because they're all located in,  the Western United States. I don't know.  I will say that female friends,  the friends I have who are female, we don't get [00:12:00] into the ego thing. It's more about building each other up.

And again, I don't know happenstance, if that's just me or whatever. But that's when I encounter male on male dynamic, we're immediately sizing each other up. We're immediately figuring out who knows more, who is smarter, who is funnier, who makes more, who's more successful. Who's the whole kit.

Fawn: [00:12:24] I think women do that too.

We do it differently, perhaps,  but best believe women size each other up, but I think it really has to do with how you're thinking and what you're incorporating into your personality. If you have more of like the, if you feel like the what now I forgot the word, the patriarchy. Thank you. If you feel like you, you see how the patriarchy rules everything in our society, then you think, well, I'll be more like a man.

 And you start behaving [00:13:00] towards the characteristics that a man tends to have, and you start acting like a man as a woman. Like I see it in business. I try to do it in business. I have been for a while, like when I was trying to get clients as a photographer, I pretended that I was a man. Like I didn't sign my emails with my name.

You know, I hear even in your industry, like years and years, years ago, were there a bunch of women that were coders in the seventies? And they were all moms and  they all had aliases, like men male names so they could do the coding jobs. Do you remember that? So I just feel like it's, whatever you incorporate in your personality, and if you feel like you need more of the yin or the yang or whatever, that, if you tend to embody that,

that it has to do more with that rather than the true sex of [00:14:00] whatever you were born with. Do you know what I mean? It's a personality thing.

Matt: [00:14:04] I, I, yeah, no, no, no. I certainly do.

Fawn: [00:14:07] I mean, we, we know women CEOs that are  hardcore, right, right.

Matt: [00:14:12] Like a man, they run that risk of  getting called terrible things, as apposed to "assertive"

Fawn: [00:14:17] exactly.

And it's done because it's, what's the word. Patronizing that's when you start patronizing, someone is saying, oh, look at the strong figure. Who does she thinks she is? She is a B rather than, wow. She's strong. Which you would say about a man, right? Wow. That guy's powerful.

Matt: [00:14:43] But anyways,  getting back to the ego and all the rest of it, and what I've had to deal with is every single programming team I've been on there always is, and always is a huge word. And I know I'm saying it, I'm throwing that out there, but there's [00:15:00] always that person who thinks that they're better than everyone else.

And usually sadly, almost they are.

Fawn: [00:15:09] What?!.

Matt: [00:15:10] I know it's a weird world, right. But they're better than everyone else in one slice of knowledge, in one particular thing, in one aspect of everything

Fawn: [00:15:21] that sounded horrible. You gotta rephrase that. Cause I know that's not what you really mean in your heart. That sounded terrible.

Rephrase that again. What you said. You think there are people that are better than other people say more skilled, you're talking about a specific technique and business. It sounded like you were saying as a human being, that one person is better than the other person.

Matt: [00:15:48] Right. And

that, that is that's the

subtle trap.

Fawn: [00:15:51] That is not what you said.

Matt: [00:15:52] That is the trap of language as well?

 And to say that typically they're more skilled and or knowledgeable in [00:16:00] perhaps the technology you're working and our particular skill is spatial working in a skill yes.

In a particular skill. And they, they kind of carry this forward and they kind of put it all over their personality. And if here's the strangest part, if you don't walk around with whatever airs you have. People assume maybe you don't know much.

Fawn: [00:16:23] Unfortunately you have to puff your chest out and say, and grunt and say, look what I did.

I did this!  Because we don't pay attention to each other because we're so wrapped up in our own stuff that, you know, in the "I", you know, so everybody could at, at some point be wrapped up so much within themselves, then they don't see. So then the other person has to feel like they do have to get up on the table, jump up and down and say, I did this, you know what I mean?

Not at all. And then there are other people who steal your stuff. So yeah. Yeah, I have to say I did [00:17:00] this before they do that. Or they

Matt: [00:17:01] take it away because somebody took credit for something I did. Right, right. And just what it was. And that was me 25, maybe foolish. But, so it was a, it was a good job too. I could possibly even still be there, but it wasn't, it wasn't a healthy atmosphere.

Fawn: [00:17:16] Oops. Oh, honey. The table knocked the whole house down,

Matt: [00:17:20] bunkie, bora the table.

Fawn: [00:17:22] Anyway, but you know what? I, I have also experienced that. I mean, all the time, it's just, it comes with the territory. I experienced it in yoga, getting certified in yoga. The person started taking my ideas, the head teacher, the head of the school, and I saw it happening and she would ignore it.

And constantly like, treat me, like I wasn't even there that I never said when I said that I never did what I did. Like nothing, no credit. Well, it's,

Matt: [00:17:53] it's, it's a strange world. Let's let's one of the things I continually talk about is owning your inner Papa. Right. And [00:18:00] I believe in my head that I invented this, but I probably didn't, but God knows where I picked it up from ...strange.

Uh, but anyways, yesterday with my coworker, I had to puff my chest out. Cause we were going through a bug and I had woken up in the morning and seen the bug and he didn't start until later. So I was starting to troubleshoot it and it was really bizarre and I had a hard time finding it. And when I finally did find it, I was very proud of myself.

I did, I actually knew exactly how to fix it, which is the way it ended up being fixed. I wasn't sure how we should fix it. It's one of those world worlds, cause this was completely in the other programmers kind of ballywick right. And so I walked him through troubleshooting and then I had to stop and say, this isn't even what I do.

Isn't it amazing that I found this? Cause he gave me no kudos. I had to stop him for a minute and say, Hey. Wasn't [00:19:00] this a cool thing. Now we have developed a relationship and we've developed a relationship that's reasonably free of ego, but I felt it necessary to puff my chest out a little bit.

Fawn: [00:19:09] Yeah. It's just interesting how people feel  the need of having that triumph over you.

Why does that happen? I needed a little triumph over him. Well,  I was gonna say in that perhaps what we need is a ritual in our society where when you do something that you have a party about it, like a ceremonial "yay. I did it!".

Matt: [00:19:32] Or a parade.

Fawn: [00:19:33] Exactly. That's where I was going. That, yeah, we do ceremonially need to have, even if it's just us doing it for ourselves, but having a ritual that says "thank goodness. Yay. I accomplished what I set out to do", but I'll, you know, one of my friends that I will just name Dolly does this to me throughout the decades. We've been [00:20:00] friends. Um, I will, I will provide something in, in the friendship. And she will listen. And at the time she's kind of quiet about it to the point where I'm like, oh, I guess she didn't appreciate what I just offered.

You know, it could be, you know, I, here, I want you to, if she was having problems, I'm like, okay, this can be easily fixed here. I'll introduce you to the acupuncturist that I go to; my doctor. Right. And a few months later. She starts seeing this person and starts photographing them. And I was like, Hey, I'm photographing them.

Or like seeing them kind of behind my back, like coming all the way, traveling to another city where I live to just to see this doctor and not letting me like, not letting me know she was in the neighborhood. Like that's weird. And then me finding out by accident, oh, you're here to see Dr. [00:21:00] Crow. Do you know what I mean?

And then years later, Telling me about Dr. Crow saying, this is my doctor that I found, perhaps I should introduce you. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, what do you say, do you remember? I introduced you to Crow and she'll deny it. Right. But like that kind of thing, I'm like, how does I don't, I don't even know how, when people steal, I mean, this is just one tiny example of how people steal your stuff.

Like not that

you're

Matt: [00:21:31] holding

onto it or anything.

Fawn: [00:21:33] I have a feeling I have to hold on to it, to give myself examples of ways that this person hurts me, but it's really no big deal who cares, who cares? Uh, you know, I'm so glad that she found Crow and that Crow's in her life, because he is a phenomenal doctor, right.

Acupuncturist. It, it, I don't, I really don't care because I'm okay with myself. Do you know what I mean? I know, I know the truth [00:22:00] and  it's total BS, but if this happens a lot and it kind of has, and I can't really bring it up because I feel like if I do, there will be a, uh, a misunderstood,

so I don't want to talk about it. You know what I mean? Because I feel like the friendship isn't that kind of friendship where it can withstand that. Because I feel like Dolly thinks he's better than me.

Matt: [00:22:27] Right. And that, that gets us back

Fawn: [00:22:29] into the alphabet. It's a skill, but I feel like when people need to do that, there's something in them that you trigger.

So there's maybe something in me that maybe triggers Dolly that makes her not want to fully. Uh, appreciate me as a human being by myself that I'm lower than she is, that she has to tell me stuff sometimes. Right? It's not like that throughout our entire friendship. Otherwise we wouldn't really be good friends, but [00:23:00] it's a, it's an interesting thing.

And I think it does have to do with ego.

Matt: [00:23:06] Well,

I think when we talked about this, we talked offline about this, but it's, there's a jumble of emotions and we're focused on scarcity and it's about me getting something, even if it means you don't because ultimately I'm more important.

Certainly to me, than you are,

Fawn: [00:23:30] and it probably comes from some trauma where the person did not feel as important. So they have to really hold up that part of themselves to say, I am important and it has nothing to do with me. So whatever it is that Dolly does, whatever it is that Dolly does, it has to do nothing with me.

It has nothing to do with. She needs that affirmation. That indeed she's a phenomenal person. She's a [00:24:00] phenomenal, creative, amazing, intelligent person. Right. I love her. There's a need to feel like you do have to puff up your chest and that you have to, uh, lie at some, at some points. Now that's not how I roll.

I don't like keeping things from people. I don't like lying. I don't lie to our children. I tell them exactly what's up, you know, in a, in a friendly way, you know, in a, in a, in a, what do you call it in a curated way? Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't say, look, I don't know, like there's nuclear war over here. You know what I mean?

I'm not gonna S I'm just gonna curate it and like do a, a children's book version of nuclear war over here. What I mean, but I feel like it, that's what it is. and it probably comes from some trauma where the person did not feel as important. So they have to really hold up that part of themselves to say, I am important and it has nothing to do with me. So whatever it is that Dolly does, whatever it is that Dolly does, it has to do nothing with me.Right. But I do believe that they won't see it. So you have to prepare yourself for a backlash because they're not going to turn around and go, wow, you're right.

And like, and, and change the behavior because they will lash out at you in some way. Do you know what I mean? You will feel disappointed by their behavior. Right? If you're expecting things to be totally copacetic right now with me and my ego, I mean, I just go and cry. I [00:26:00] mean, I just, I don't know. Do you know what I mean?

It takes, it takes a lot centering myself and leaving myself out of it and reminding myself to leave myself out of this, that this is this person and not me, this has to do with this person and not me. Right. But seriously, like, but, but if it's your livelihood, that's at stake in this person's taking or lashing out at you and destroying your character because they're lashing out.

I don't know how to deal with

that.

Matt: [00:26:33] Well, and honestly, It all goes through phases. It all goes through, I almost want to say stages of getting to know someone and et cetera, et cetera. And you know, if, if they're going to be raining fire on you early on in your relationship, relationship should not survive.

And usually doesn't. If it's much later in your relationship where you've been able to bridge the trust and you've been able to come to common [00:27:00] understandings, The relationship you can survive such a thing. So, you know, it's, it's really, it's really kind of a Testament to longevity, whether or not  this behavior is okay, for example,  this person who I said, Hey, you know, my coworker, we're in the process of becoming friends and I can see us deepening our relationship.

And this is he's very gruff. He's very taciturn. He's very standoffish. BUT every day when we get on our little zoom call, I'm like, Hey, how's it going? How are you doing? How was your weekend? His wife had surgery. I asked about his wife and now tee hee hee. We, after we had that, you know, Hey, check this out.

This was pretty cool. I mean, it wasn't it. And he agreed then same conversation. He told me about a dream. He had that.

Fawn: [00:27:54] That is so adorable.

Matt: [00:27:56] T he, he, I mean,

Fawn: [00:27:58] so cute. It is cute [00:28:00] because he's a tough guy. He's a

Matt: [00:28:01] tough, he's a tough and kind of a scary guy, for sure.

Fawn: [00:28:04] Just looking at him. He's a tough guy and he doesn't

Matt: [00:28:07] his smiles feel almost feral.

They're very kind of like he's bearing teeth more than he's smiling

Fawn: [00:28:14] I mean, he looks like a rugged mountain man. Like scary looking handsome. Uh, when I see them, I feel like, oh, I don't want to mess with you brother. Do you know what I mean? So for him to share his dream, that is so beautiful.

Matt: [00:28:32] He also knows I'm looking out for him because there have been those moments because I pay attention where I know that a conversation we just had with the boss and et cetera, he's upset.

He's not happy. And he's fronting like it's okay. And I remember the first time that happened, I immediately got ahold of him and I. Dude you all right? Because I knew that he would need to vent because I'm always paying attention.

Fawn: [00:28:58] And that's because you [00:29:00] left yourself out of it and just watched, and you only saw him as him.

Do you know what I mean? Because you had nothing to do with that that's how, but that's how you were able to have a good communication with him or like see him truly for who he is.

Matt: [00:29:22] Right. Honestly, I'm not passing value judgements on them. I mean, I know all sorts of random things about him, and I know we're diametrically opposed on some things, so it's just, should we get into it?

Should we not get into it at this point in time, our friendship isn't at a place where it can survive that. So we don't go there, you know? And so when I talk about some homeopathic, natural pathic vegan thing, he'll politely listen. And discard. It's nice and

Fawn: [00:29:52] simple baby steps. And this is how you're building a relationship of friendship and

[00:30:00] Matt: [00:30:00] navigating our way through both of our egos.

Fawn: [00:30:02] Right. And once everyone is cleared of the, "I", like, feeling heard, feeling seen, it takes some time. It takes time to prove that I do see you. I hear you. It takes time for that to be proven. And that's how you build a friendship. And then once you build that friendship, then you have to build on what kind of friendship is this? Right.

Going back to Nicomachean ethics, right? Going back to Aristotle. Is this a friend that is with me because this person feels good around me. Is this a friend because are they, are they my friend? Of the way I make them feel right. Or is it because of what they get out of the relationship or is it a friend that will still like me when I'm ugly?

Right, right. For me, love me for my ego. Love me for me. Right. [00:31:00] And that's about it. I mean, that's, that's the lesson today. I mean, one little podcast episode, and my goodness. I'm like, I can talk about this forever. There's people in their egos. I think that is the, is the word crux, crux does a word. I think that's it, that, that, that is a huge hurdle to come and get over is to acknowledging the ego.

And the ego has been given such a bad rap, probably through all the psychology in the world. But it's just simple. People want to be seen and heard it's the "I". They want to be themselves. They want to be treated and valued. Right? Absolutely. Okay. And that's about it. Should we do a short episode or do you have more to offer?

We have a lot more to offer. I know. What do you think? Short and sweet. Short and sweet, short and sweet [00:32:00] guys. Don't worry about the ego. Remember to say, I love you. In Latin, you would say ego amo te.  I'm probably mispronouncing it. All right, everybody. We love you. Please help us out. Prove this person wrong that we are doing something of value.

Speaking of ego, but, but it's not though. No, it's not. I mean, we are doing our work. We want to change the world by bringing about compassion and kindness by seeing each other, truly, but not attacking each other by creating a utopia in our society. And it's the key is the art of friendship. Please, please reach out to me, go to the website.

And go to contact us. That's how you [00:33:00] email me. Let's figure this out. Let's get to gather. Let's create community for real. I really want to prove this guy wrong. We are doing something.

Tell me, tell me your opinion,

Matt: [00:33:14] because again, we're back to the. My wife needs to be people say, I see you.

Fawn: [00:33:21] No, it's not about me dummy. I'm saying I want to create community for real. So let's do this. Let's show this person. This person is not alone. Or the fact that he said we're doing nothing. That we're nothing.

We're nothing but a podcast. And we're really not doing anything. Please let me know what you think. Of this work. It's not me now. I'm getting mad. Mad. Okay.

You're the devil. You're the devil. All right. All right. Oh my God. Love is winning. [00:34:00] Love is winning. All right, folks, we'll talk to you in a little bit. Take care. Be well. Be well.