Have you heard that there’s a time to change from ego to eco? It’s been used in some company’s slogans, as well. As for the eco, we often hear it in the conversations about the environment, and it stands for ecology as everyone knows. Also, the term is used as a meaning for “being good for environment (nature)”
Interestingly, when you take the voiced sound mark of the “エゴ (ego)” away (which is the part in the red circle), it turns to “エコ (ecology)” So what does ego mean here? We’ve often heard of egoistic or egoism. In these cases, it is used to express “selfish, self-centered and self-oriented” behavior.
If I try to express the meaning of the ego in a Chinese character, I could use “我 (ego)”. I want you to pay attention to the word of “我 (ego)”. It can be separated to “手 (hand)” and “矛 (pike)”as shown in the figure 1. It’s exactly showing us the situation in which a man has a pike and tries to keep the enemies away (Figure.2).
I think that you can recognize that it’s like a combat situation, can’t you? Don’t you think that it indicates the situation in the modern society? Everyone tries to be number 1. Everyone tries to be a winner to survive in society. I wonder how our world will be in the future as a result and how society will end up with. Our targeting market isn’t only inside Japan but all over the world. People intend to develop their business in China, India and so on, even if there is no chance in Japan. It’s not only the case for major companies but also for the middle and small companies. When all their goods reach to every part and corner of the world, then I wonder what will happen. If the earth isn’t enough for them then they shall go out to space and start selling their goods to Arians?
As for the society in which our “我 (ego)” keeps increasing, I think that it’s a conflicting society which is against those slogans that aim at living together, emphasizing, harmonizing and cooperating and so on.
Only the human desire knows no bounds. I wonder if it’s possible to stop the “ego”…
The difference between エゴ(ego) and エコ(eco)…I think that what we have to do is just take that voiced sound mark away, which means that we should be getting rid of the thoughts that care only about ourselves (ego). If we can clean up our mind, we may become able to see something that we’ve never seen before or feel something we’ve never felt before. When you observe nature closely enough, we will find that we aren’t conflicting with each other but living together.
