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# Identity is baked in
- URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/identity-is-baked-in/
- Published: 2026-01-11T07:00:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-01-11T07:00:48.000Z
- Description: However much we try and escape from ego… there it is 👋🏻
- Author: Giles P Croft
- Tags: Identity, Psychology, Quick insight, Real stories, Relationships, Sunday Spiritual, Hafiz, TRUE NATURE

Do you think that you've got this whole ego thing licked?

That you're pretty chill and you seldom, if ever, take things personally?

That you're quite comfortable with your spiritual evolution?

Well then, let me recommend a test of your mettle.

🐄

Somebody bought me the board game pictured above—[*Herd Mentality*](https://bigpotato.co.uk/products/herd-mentality?ref=gilespcroft.com)—for Christmas (thank you)!

The premise couldn't be more simple: A question gets asked, and everybody has to guess what the most common answer will be.

The person who goes ‘with the herd’ most often, wins. There are penalties for individuality.

It's *hilarious*. Way funnier than it sounds, because as soon as you start playing, everybody's egos come out to play.

Not ‘ego’ in the sense of wanting to win, or be the best, but ‘ego’ as in the mind's preferences. Its little hidden rules about how-life-should-be and what-other-people-should-think.

The most straightforward questions, such as:

- *What's the best way to cook an egg?*
- *Name an animal beginning with the letter P*
- *What is the worst vegetable?*
- *Name something you take into the bath with you*

…cause *utter* chaos when brought from friends’ and family’s Thought Systems out into the open.

I had no idea ‘I’ (i.e.the Giles Ego Construct 📦) felt so strongly about so many different topics, until asked to put that to one side and write down what I thought everyone *else* would be thinking!!

And writing down something that ego vehemently disagreed with as ‘my’ answer was excruciating!! Talk about cognitive dissonance – it was *really* hard!

As it was for everyone. I lost count of the number of times people were heard to say,

> *“Now I must be clear – this isn't what I believe, but it's the answer that I think is probably right”*

…followed closely by (as people read out their answers),

> *“Why ON EARTH would you think THAT?!?!”*

🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂

A truly splendid game for the family that we played repeatedly, all through the holidays, such was the hilarity it induced every time we sat down to ask the questions.

Highly recommended and *such* an effective way to shine a light on separate realities, playing it should come with CPD points for Innate Health practitioners!

😆

It brings to mind a hilarious little Hafiz poem:

> **TEN THOUSAND IDIOTS**

> *It is always a danger* 
> *To aspirants* 
> *On the* 
> *Path*

> *When they begin* 
> *To believe and* 
> *Act*

> *As if the ten thousand idiots* 
> *Who so long ruled* 
> *And lived* 
> *Inside*

> *Have all packed their bags* 
> *And skipped town* 
> *Or* 
> *Died.*

> ***\~ Hafiz***

©️

"Ten Thousand Idiots" from **The Subject Tonight is Love*, Daniel Ladinsky, copyright 2003\. [www.danielladinsky.com](http://www.danielladinsky.com/?ref=gilespcroft.com). Printed with permission.

🧡

Giles