Egos ~ how do they affect you?

[Melooon]

Im gonna start by posting the formal definition so everyone is on the same page:

ego - the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world

Your ego is the you that stands apart from the world; the you that is separate and defined, verses blurry and part of the crowd. Its an important part of everyone's identity and its the thing that stops you from mixing up your feet and the floor. Egos are also a useful tool to give you confidence and the padding to mess up and try again.

However egos can sometimes go too far; egos can make you too separate and they can force you to blind yourself to the world around you ~ an ego can make you scared to try new things or accept alternative possibilities ~ everyone does that sometimes too.

I'm curious about peoples attitudes to egos in the web revival scene!

• How does your ego impact the way you design your site?
• How do you gauge ego's of others in sites you visit?
• How do you balance ego when making sites or artworks?
• How to metrics like post counts, site stats and hits affect your ego?
• Are our web url's part of our egos since they divide our sites from other sites?
• When you work on shared projects like the everyone site, do you feel the same sense of ego on shared pages?

All of this comes to mind because Iv been staying at a summercamp where everyone was mucking in together and egos really felt like they naturally took a back seat in that space. Some artists I talk too say their art is all about ego, while others say they try very hard to leave their ego behind when they make art.

Tell me

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I think that "ego" is very hard to circumscribe. I believe that my (and everybody elses) ego lingers, swaps, flows into the room surrounding our bodies, and even into objects that we create, own, or use.

As such, a big part of my ego is present in any art/website/game I do. On the other hand, I think that the ego of every viewer/player/bystander flows into my creation as well - depending on how they use it, this might be a bigger portion of the "spirit" present in the object than my part in it.

I also think that it takes some deeper interaction with an object (website/picture/etc): Only if you try to infest the object with your own ego, you can sense the other presences within it! 

I see no need whatsoever to balance the amount of ego in my work. The more, the merrier. It doesn't matter where it is released. I want my work to be seen, because I take pride in it, and use counters and so on to check my "visibility", but this isn't my main drive for doing what I do.

[TheFrugalGamer]

This is a very interesting question! I have to admit I've never really stopped to think about how my ego manifests itself in the things I create. Ultimately I create my art for myself, so I know that it is fully present, but I also think that others should be free to interpret and read my works as they wish, so maybe it's not overbearing or as important as it seems. I've become a bigger fan of the "death of the author" theory as I've learned and experienced more.

In my mundane, day-to-day life, especially in professional contexts, I've worked really hard to get rid of my ego and focus on results and accomplishments. Too many times I think the ego--wanting to be right, wanting things "my way," and being in full control--prevents people from working together, so I try to purge mine when I'm in those environments.

But I don't think we're ever as good at compartmentalizing as we think we are, so maybe that sort of thinking works its way into other areas as well. I'd ask what my readers/users/visitors think, but maybe that's a self-fulfilling question!

I have a follow-up question (I hope this is not too off topic): Michelangelo supposedly said this about his carving:

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

Is this an expression of the artist's pure ego, or the exact opposite?

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I have a follow-up question (I hope this is not too off topic): Michelangelo supposedly said this about his carving:

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

Is this an expression of the artist's pure ego, or the exact opposite?

The ego can always be only existent in relation to the world surrounding it; without it, the ego would be all-embracing, a world itself. As ego, it can only exist projected against its surroundings, it is dependent of them.
The marble block is another instance in the same world; the material the later form (as any other) consists of is - of course - already there; when Michelangelo starts interacting with it, a part of his ego is scribed into the material (by taking it away, reducing the marble block as instance, partly overwriting it with its own ego); the combination of these "instances" (Michaelangelos ego and the marble block) make the final sculpture that he was already aware of when working with the marble block.
I'd say that the quote shows a certain sensitivity that his art is a result from interaction with his environment; I don't think we can make conclusions about his ego from it.