Mostly unconscious and completely invisible to the person, often times to the truly absurd degree. One could issue two personal statements next to each other which directly contradict each other, wouldn’t notice and refuse to even look at it by blatantly ignoring the inquiry or questioning the motives of inquiry. Ego is basically human insanity, and its deepest fear is to be discovered. When discovered, it’s also its deepest pain, so this fear is not entirely unfounded. But this pain is that of liberation from its own madness.

Come to think of it, even one statement can suffice. A caricature example of such statements which most people would be able to relate to could be “I never judge anybody, and you’re a judgmental fuck” or “We should kill all intolerant people”. When an ego is unhappy with itself and is attacking itself (thinking that it’s attacking me), every second statement it makes is of precisely the same nature, but, of course, it cannot see it, just like I couldn’t see it before either. First it baffled and dazzled me to no end, then it became simply hilarious, then I just got used to it and I don’t pay it the slightest attention anymore. Ego is supremely, utterly self-contradictory but it cannot see its own contradictions.