Jesus and The Conceptualized Self

There is an idea in psychology known as the conceptualized self. This has also been described as the ego, but because of some of the confusion around ego structure and how it works we will stick with the conceptualized self for now (perhaps there will be a future blog about ego structure). This conceptualized self is who you think you are, your defenses of those thoughts, and all the narcissism tied in. Your mind adapts to thinking that it is the entirety of your being and its survival is paramount. To quote Brad Blanton: "Once the mind has decided that itself is what must survive, its survival comes from being right at any cost...by getting agreement and not disagreement from other minds...[from] being right and avoiding being wrong. This narcissistic preoccupation with itself, its own survival, necessitates defense of its assessments, judgements, decisions, stories, products and creations."- Radical Parenting, pp141-142. We trick ourselves that our value is based on our performance, our acheivement and our ambition. THAT is the conceptualized self, and it is not who you are. Eastern philosophy and religions have tapped into these ideas and have come up with a inadequate solution to the conceptualized self--ridding oneself of desire and ambition, and becoming one with the cosmos (yes this is a simplified picture for time's sake). The idea is ridding yourself of a conceptualization of who you are for a lack of identity, or identifying with everything else (which, to me, eliminates distinction, therefore lack of identity). I agree with Eastern philosophy that we must destroy our conception of self, but we cannot move on without identity.

This is where Jesus comes in. I think Jesus takes this idea and epitomizes both the destruction of "conceptualized self" and adoption of a real self. The reason I put conceptualized self in quotation marks in the previous sentence, is that I am not sure Jesus ever conceptualized himself as other than he truly was. I think Jesus understood himself fully. I think, though, that he demonstrated the hallmarks of conceptualized self destruction. He rid himself of selfish ambition--his only ambition was to obey the father. His temptation by Satan in the desert was tempting his ambition. His miracles were never out of self-service, only service to others. In a time when everyone seemed to want him to be an earthly king (a position of achievement), he destroys that, by not only allowing his body to be killed, but taking on the sins of mankind. He effectively makes it possible for us to destroy our conceptualized selves. See, without atonement for our sin our identity is fixed--sinners condemned to death. He makes the necessary sacrifice to allow us to adopt a new identity--the one we were created to be. The Father conceptualizes us is what we really are--his beloved children. Children should be loved without regard to their performance, their acheivement--they are loved for being. This is how God loves us.

Finally, my friend says the purpose of life is knowing oneself. I believe he is more right than he knows. However, one cannot know oneself outside of relationships, otherwise that person would have no objectivity, and therefore accuracy, in knowing self. If relationship is necessary to know oneself, what better relationship to establish than with someone who knows you better than anyone, the one who created and loves you for who you are, not what you do.