Alter Ego

Earlier I said here that the ego is poison. It is, but it's a necessary poison. It is the will-to-live of the self-conscious animal. Too much of it leads to constant conflict; too little, the same. Then there is the alter ego, which we usually associate with psychiatric disorders, comic book superheroes or creative types. Since self-consciousness is necessarily never unitary, maybe we should move the alter ego from the margin to the center of our understanding.