I was looking through old posts I’d written from 2016–18 about Trump and came across this essay—penned fresh out of a Dhamma Vipassana sit and a week on the Playa. At the time, I was still deep in the identity trap—vocally anti-Trump in a smug, intellectual, elitist sort of way.

What strikes me now is how accurately I managed to dissect the very thing I was still entangled in.

Read the essay and let me know how it lands. And read all the way to the end—there’s a postscript that extends this Buddhist frame to Jesus Christ.

September 6, 2018

(This idea emerged from a conversation I had inside the confession booth on the Playa. It’s an engineer’s outlook on how Ego and Identity work together.)

Your Identity is essentially a database of traits that define you. These traits act like membership cards to various human communities. You gain these memberships based on your likes, dislikes, and context.

For example:

– Love Apple products? You’re in the Apple fanboy community.

– Hate Trump? That tags you as part of the anti-Trump crowd.

– Brown immigrant in America? You belong to that cultural context, too.

Now, when something happens, the Ego acts like a processor querying the Identity database:

“Do I like or dislike this event?”

The response depends on your identity traits:

– Event: iPhone launch delayed → returns dislike if you’re an Apple fanboy.

– Event: Hasan Minhaj releases a Netflix special → returns like if you’re a brown American immigrant.

– Event: Trump gets elected → returns dislike if you’re anti-Trump.

If the result is like, the Ego generates a craving for more. Craving leads to misery when the experience ends—because everything ends.

If the result is dislike, the Ego generates aversion. Aversion leads to misery while the experience persists.

We live in a world where Identities are fattened—systemic forces encourage it for their own gain.

– Apple wins when there are more Apple fanboys.

– Nations benefit from cultivating strong national identity (e.g., “Ask not what your country can do for you…”).

– Communities grow stronger by accumulating more members.

Some of these identities might align with your goals. Many won’t.

The key is awareness: what’s in your Identity database, and how did it get there?

Paul Graham’s article (link) dives deeper into this.

So, if you want to reduce misery, reduce the size of your Identity database.

How?

Track the moments of intense happiness and intense sorrow. These spikes are usually connected to a specific Identity trait. Once identified, ask yourself:

– How did this trait enter my Identity database?

– What value does it bring to my life?

Track both happiness and sorrow—not just one. Why? Because the same identity trait can cause both. The trap is clinging to the “positive” feelings that come with belonging, only to get slammed later by the negatives. Trying to fix just the bad stuff doesn’t work. The Identity still has you.

Craving is a desire for permanence in the things you like.

Aversion is anxiety about the permanence of the things you dislike.

Both are rooted in a misunderstanding: everything is impermanent.

Knowing that intellectually isn’t enough. If the Craving or Aversion has already fired, you’re already in the Misery loop. What’s needed is subconscious acceptance of impermanence. That’s the only way to break the machinery of Ego. Permanently.

Because misery is inefficient.

It makes you act poorly.

It wastes your time.

It sucks.

The physical technique for training the subconscious in impermanence is what the Buddha discovered. His main innovation. It’s called Vipassana.

Following Jesus Christ short-circuits this entire machinery—right at the point where likes and dislikes are generated. Everything collapses into that one moment when Christ died on the cross. That’s what it means when Christians say He is the savior.

Dhamma Vipassana is a powerful technique—but ultimately, it’s still a technique. It requires striving. Effort. Practice.

Salvation through Jesus doesn’t require striving. It may look like striving from the outside. And yes, there is often a season of realignment—of learning to live by the principles Christ gave us. But once that alignment sets in, there’s no more struggle. No more uphill battle.

The alignment feels more like a flow—something you surrender to, not something you push against.

That’s been my experience so far—and of course, this needs more time to be fully baked in. And yet, the entirety of my spiritual and healing journey has been driven by insights that often came long before they fully ripened. Looking back, many of those early insights still hold true. I’ll revisit this essay in a few years and report back.

Meanwhile, praise Jesus! Hallelujah! Glory to the Creator!