In the realm of power, everything must be judged by its cost, and everything has a price. -- Robert Greene

As TRP has collectively realized, we live in an increasingly selfish world. As religion in the Western world has crumbled, with it have disappeared our checks and balances on the ego.

TRP recognizes that the selfish nature of humanity is often not openly discussed, and that modern women are particularly good at spinning situations so as not to appear egotistical. We also see how dominant masculine egos are reviled, while submissive male egos are applauded but not rewarded, and dominant feminine egos are both applauded and rewarded. What disgusts reddit so much about TRP is seeing the dominant male ego so brazenly displayed. What disgusts TRP about reddit is how hypocritical they are in their own selfish pursuits.

So far, TRP’s answer has been to play the ego game ruthlessly. To not lose your dominant male ego, but to conceal it wisely and reveal it selectively. To become better at recognizing the selfish motivations of others, to always put your own selfish motivations first, to accomplish selfish goals through self-mastery.

The self is the friend for him who has conquered his self, but to the unconquered self, this self is an enemy at war. -- The Bhagavad Gita

The tools of self-mastery are some of TRP's greatest offerings to its members. By nature of our brain’s ability to remember, reflect and contextualize, we cannot permanently escape dealing with the self, it’s a fact of our lives. There are infinite quick fixes (drugs, booze, music) that temporarily satisfy the inner screaming toddler, but it always eventually wants more. So the self must be mastered. Self-mastery is a recognition that what we want immediately is not always what is best for us; diet over dessert, training over television. To this I think we can all agree.

But self-mastery as TRP describes it is often quite a gnarly trap, because it is merely training the ego to be better at giving itself what it wants later. And it is never satisfied.

I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that it's not the answer. -- Jim Carrey

I personally am not a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, a hedonist, a Zen monk, a Stoic, anything--I do not wish to be limited by identifying with brand names. But I do like to humble myself before ancient wisdom and try to see what old men figured out before me, to triangulate practical truths by comparing their principles with my own life experience. On most surface-level things, religions do not agree with my life, much less each other. But when it comes to the ego, they are all undeniably at war with it.

When I look back at my life with an honest eye, I find I was always happiest when I was at my most selfless, and most miserable when I was my most selfish, even in victory (aside from momentary, fleeting glory).

When I first came to TRP, the anger phase was in part seeing how much more egotistical those around me had been in my selfless periods. That waking up made me see those stretches of joyous living as just delusions and fantasies. In many ways, they were--I didn’t see human nature for how it really was. How I understood my joy at the time was flawed.

But it became my fallacy to respond to that human nature by giving into the nastiest parts of my own. The more I gained in material possessions and social power by harming and manipulating those around me, the more it cost me in fulfillment. In friendships. I didn't have just Pyrrhic victories, I was waging a Pyrrhic campaign.

What is not good for the hive cannot be good for the bee. -- Marcus Aurelius

We can’t hope to permanently eliminate the ego without complete psychosis. So how do we make the ego a friend? Not by merely delaying his gratification, but by tricking him. Harnessing his ambition towards selfless ends, to the greater good. Towards a selfless community--the other thing religions agree on. Maybe their reasons for building communities were merely pragmatic for survival, insanely ignorant, logically flawed, or partially selfishly driven. But these religions also happened to be effective vehicles towards happiness for most people.

It struck me as gross for a long time to imagine doing things for others for selfish reasons. That I shouldn’t do volunteer work unless I genuinely felt like it. That I shouldn’t act out of mercy and gratitude towards someone unless I genuinely loved them (or if I knew I would be manipulating them into doing what I want). I suspect this will be the biggest point of contention to this post, as it was for me. That to be selfless when one does not feel that way makes you lose integrity. But I’ve also found that the more you start actually doing the selfless actions--even if it’s initially for selfish motivations--you find yourself becoming more readily selfless. And if you recognize the importance of being selfless, in general, it becomes even easier, and you do it more often. And then others start becoming more selfless towards you.

But--this is another trap--don’t expect others to be selfless. That is entitlement and delusion. And don’t expect to always feel naturally selfless either. The structure and rituals of religion came about because the ego is relentless. To manage it requires living by codes instead of emotions, to regularly acknowledge when you’ve caused harm to others, to give your material goods to those who need them more, to be disciplined, to be present, to build things that others want and need...to build a community.

Do acts of charity to be a manipulative bastard if you must. What do you have to lose? Worst-case, you become an excellent sociopath who accomplishes more selfish goals than if you thought only of yourself. You’ll still never feel like you got what you want, but at least you’ll get more of it.

But the less you listen to your ego's selfish desires and channel its energy and ambition to make the lives of those around you better, the quieter your ego becomes anyway. To me, that's self-mastery.