Back Matter: Villegas’ Book Series on EGOnomics
EGOnomics – Finding Your Core Ego
“Why did I write this book, and why did I call it EGOnomics?
I believe you need to defend your ego against countless efforts to diminish it.
Anti-ego ideologies often equivocate between egoism and narcissism and treat
both concepts as if they were the same. The proponents of “anti-ego” do not
like to witness a person expressing pride and self-regard, or when he is
praised for having done something good or beneficial for himself. “Who does he
think he is?” they ask.
“In this book I want to straighten out our understanding of
the human ego and I want to give you tools to help you feel better about
putting yourself first. I want you to understand that your ego is part of your
makeup, natural, and there should be no guilt associated with it. First, you
must learn that egoism is a positive human trait that has been denigrated
because it should be the “first focus” of the individual. Egoism, and its
expression, selfishness, are not evil, they represent innocent love that the
individual should express to him- or herself. Secondly, narcissism, often
thought to be associated with egoism, is not egoism – and it is upon this
difference that society and morality have gone wrong.”
EGOnomics Part Two – The Question of Moral Status
"The goal of my EGOnomics writing is to bring to my
readers new ways of thinking and being. I want to open your eyes to the
benefits of thinking of yourself as your only and central focus. I want to
teach you HOW to be proudly selfish and what you should do to achieve it. I
want you to learn that being proudly selfish and proudly happy leads also to
your being proudly moral. In fact, all three of these states, being proudly
selfish, being proudly happy, and being proudly moral are so similar that they
are virtually the same state of being. Who would tell you that being proudly
moral is wrong – yet some say that being proudly selfish is immoral. Note the
contradiction.
"Being proudly selfish can be encapsulated by saying
that your first and only thought should be about you and that is as it should
be. It is a good thing because it brings good into your life. It is the basic
motivation for doing good and right things. Being proudly selfish is also the
same as being proudly guiltless. Living proud and living selfishly should be
something that you run to with full vigor, full energy, and a complete
expectation that you will experience a profound, central core of being that is
fully enthusiastic and fully rich with feeling.
This Book is About You – It is About Time
You have a yearning, a passion for some form of the good.
What is it? You only know that you are confused, unclear, unable to decide just
who you are and what you want. You look around and see the people. You wonder
what makes them move each day? You notice some of them act as if they don’t
care what happens next, they are dressed differently and seem not to care what
they look like or how people react to them. Others move briskly bent on a
purpose, concerned only about what they are about. People walk by them; they
don’t even notice. They just keep to their path and you wonder where they are
going. This book is about you. It's about time.
Ayn Rand’s Moral Code
These pages represent two chapters of my recently updated
book, The REAL Purpose-Driven Life plus an additional chapter on good versus
evil. I removed the afore-mentioned chapters because I wanted to focus, in that
book, on the central moral concept known as purpose.
These chapters, although central to an understanding of the
morality of Ayn Rand, stand on their own and provide several important insights
on how to think about morality and apply it to the life of the individual.
Values and Purpose Workbook: Companion to The REAL
Purpose-Driven Life
This book is about how you can define your values and change
the direction of your life without being exposed to the “guilting” that so
often confronts you.
For the author, values are about the individual. Each is a
separate concept that you define and then integrate into your life through your
actions. They are good for you because you have chosen them according to the
standard which is the benefit to your life. Objectively defined values make
your life better and more personal.
After centuries of being told that nothing is about you, it
is time to set the record straight. You are a unique individual and your goal
in life should be to achieve your own happiness.
Rather than give you tasks that involve doing a lot of
things for other people, this book tells you that focusing on yourself will
reveal your life’s purpose and express your passions and freedom. In this books
on values and purpose, we start with you.
The Real Purpose-Driven Life
After centuries of being told that it is not about you, it
is time to set the record straight. You are a unique individual and your goal
in life should be to achieve your own happiness.
This book is about helping you accomplish your goals and
fixing your purpose firmly in place. It covers not only why you should pursue
your goals but how to do it.
Rather than give you tasks that involve doing a lot of
things for other people, I’m am going to tell you that focusing on yourself
will reveal your life’s purpose and express your passions and freedom. This
book starts with you.
See also "Values and Purpose Workbook"
Finding Your Soft Cry
Every individual has a yearning to know that he is both free
and good. This yearning comes to him from early youth, and he hopes that he
eventually develops the intellectual tools to help him distinguish between his
nature and the demands of society. The key to freedom is the ability to act
without restriction and, especially, without guilt.
But what happens when you are confronted with the demands of
people who have no good intentions? What if those intentions conflict with your
principles and your peace of mind? It is at this point when you cry a soft cry,
when you realize that you are suffering the soft realization of your position
as a subject and not as a free individual.
Rational Meditation
Calming the mind and quiet thinking are two new premises of
rational meditation.
This guide to rational thinking takes on mysticism,
mindfulness and eastern religious influences by explaining how they do not help
men live by means of reason and rational thinking.
Mindfulness, in particular, is the meditation system of the
left. The author shows how meditation can be done without mysticism, leftist
philosophy and the denigration of the individual.
Rational Meditation is not about collective joining with
groups of like-minded people (Plato) and/or becoming Hephaistos (Freud and
Jung). It is not about learning to help others as a moral imperative (Kant). It
is not about worshipping the noble savage and attempting to emulate him
(Rousseau). It is not about pursuing concretes disconnected from the universe
(Hume) and it is not about adjusting to your peers, friends and tribe (Hillary
Clinton, John Dewey and Jordan Peterson). It is not about establishing social
justice, environmental policies and changing the world through individual
self-sacrifice (Bernie Sanders and AOC).
Rational Meditation is self-meditation. It is thinking about
yourself without guilt and without the tenets of modern philosophy (that the
world is unknowable, that man is a phony, that ethics and living are only about
others). Rational meditation is self-interested meditation. With rational
mediation, you take some time off to think about a certain aspect of yourself,
your being and your life and you examine your relationship with existence.
Rational meditation puts you first and makes you think about
what is most important to you, your life, your happiness, your position in the
world and what you will do with your moments. It is not about a wandering mind,
it is about learning to stay in the self. The basic questions are: “Who am I?”
“Where am I?” and “What am I going to do to get where I want to go?” The first
question is the question of identity. The second is the question of where you
are mentally and physically and how you got there, while the third question is
about moral thinking and acting, holding values and achieving them. This is
what mediation should be about. It is about you and how you can live a rational
and happy life.
Workbook for Rational Meditation
This booklet is the companion workbook to my book Rational
Meditation. It utilizes the various exercises described in the original book to
assist you in contemplation or meditation and it provides space for written
input by the reader through their Kindle Reader.
The idea is to take the sections that involve written input
and contemplation and to collect them into one practical “place” that the
individual can use as he meditates on these matters. I have tried to supplement
the book chapters where necessary in the original book.
The Virtue of independence
One of the most important goals for any person is to
establish intellectual independence. Intellectual independence is the road to
“life” independence, which is the ability to earn your own way without help
from others. Typically, this goal is a characteristic of the American
individualist compared to his European cousins who can barely conceive of such
a “predatory” mindset. Needless to say, it is also the opposite of the
collectivist mindset that is becoming more common on the scene in America. This
book teaches self-reliance and respect for the self as opposed to dependence
and respect for the group.
Existence: A Rational Thoughtbook
A Rational Thoughtbook is designed for thinking as opposed
to reading. It combines brief prescient content with stunning imagery.
Existence focuses on the nature of existence and gives you intelligent thoughts
to integrate into your life.
Identity: A Rational Thoughbook
The quest for identity is a human yearning. Each of us seeks
to define who we are and what is our purpose. This yearning is the desire to
integrate our existence, our knowledge and our purpose. To aid in this quest,
the authors have created the “Rational Thoughtbook, a new breed of book that
uses vibrant images and essential questions to help you think about your most
important issues.A Rational Thoughtbook is not intended merely for reading; but
for thinking. You don’t read each page; you think about the questions being
posed and take your time answering them according to your best knowledge at the
time. Rational thinking is the exertion of mental focus and energy to improve
internal harmony and cognitive abilities. Through this book, you will use your mind
to “see” reality, determine right action, generate energy and prepare yourself
for living.
About his writings on EGOnomics, Mr. Villegas writes:
"The goal of my EGOnomics writing is to bring to my
readers new ways of thinking and being. I want to open your eyes to the
benefits of thinking of your self as your only and central focus. I want to
teach you HOW to be proudly selfish and what you should do to achieve it. I
want you to learn that being proudly selfish and proudly happy lead also to
your being proudly moral. In fact, all three of these states, being proudly
selfish, being proudly happy, and being proudly moral are so similar that they
are virtually the same state of being. Who would tell you that being proudly
moral is wrong – yet some say that being proudly selfish is immoral. Note the
contradiction.
"Being proudly selfish can be encapsulated by saying
that your first and only thought should be about you and that is as it should
be. It is a good thing because it brings good into your life. It is the basic
motivation for doing good and right things. Being proudly selfish is also the
same as being proudly guiltless. Living proud and living selfishly should be
something that you run to with full vigor, full energy, and a complete
expectation that you will experience a profound, central core of being that is
fully enthusiastic and fully rich with feeling.
"Being proudly selfish has no connection to the
culturally mistaken notions that thinking of yourself is somehow wrong and
harmful to others. Being proudly selfish is ONLY about you and has nothing to
do with others and your relationships with them. Others are important only to
the extent that they are fellow travelers, either going in the same direction
or going in the opposite direction.
"Others should never be thought of as useful to you in
any sense. There should be no thought that they should sacrifice for you.
Likewise, there should be no expectation that you should sacrifice for them.
Your expression of selfishness is yours alone – you are not for others and they
are not for you.
Robert Villegas is a published author of over 128 books and
publications. He is a former manager in a transportation company and has also
worked in other industries in various parts of the world. Politically, he is
neither progressive nor conservative while harboring agreement with laissez
faire economic principles like those of Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, and
Ayn Rand. His books can be found on Amazon in various formats as well as Barnes
and Noble and other retailers.
Comments
Post a Comment