The Virtual School of Romance
Similar to "mindfulness," Observing Ego is sentience, awareness and attention simultaneously on one's inner psychological workings, as well as the conditions of the social environment around us.
It is considered the core, prime prerequisite to doing any growth or seeing any change in one's life.
When Demeter returned from her work to where she had left Persephone, and found only the river, she interrogated them all about what had happened. Hades had stolen her daughter down to the underworld. And when not a soul could utter the details of the abduction, in a fit of rage of a level only seen in a mother whose child is imperiled, she cursed all the nymphs into becoming ugly women with feathered bodies and scaly feet, called the Sirens. The very creatures who would later tempt many sailors to their deaths on the rocks with their beautiful sounds and evil intentions, including the attempt to do so to the most fierce male warrior of the Trojan War, Odysseus, whose instinct in men may be the master one of all - that seeking the freedom of self-determination in one’s fate. Odysseus may be the master masculine instinct of them all - that which seeks the freedom of travel, adventure and the wonders of the world, as well as the challenge of its pitfalls.
This is one of those subtle things about masculinity that people overlook, misname, castigate, criticize, and even go so far as to call, the derogatory, "Peter Pan Syndrome." Which shows a lack of understanding of males and of psychology. The instincts, when left to their own devices by the lack of personal boundary skill, are in "survival mode." This, by itself, is necessarily selfish, and part of narcissism - not because of the presence of the masculine instinct, but by way of the absence of mature boundaries (which women are equally susceptible to, as seen in the Medusa and Demeter stories.)
If used positively, with mature character and good boundaries, like all instincts of either gender, the Odysseus is the very breath of life for males, and what causes them to discover new lands and new technology, to pursue a woman they love to the ends of the Earth, and to spread knowledge, achievement and victory over our goals, to all they meet along the way - friend and stranger alike.
The Odysseus Instinct is a man traveling in a foreign land, giving money to the poor whom he encounters along the way. But he is also the father, sent by the mother to their child's college, to pull them out of school and away from drug abuse. The adventure of being masculine serves everyone, and feeds all the other masculine instincts in the way they feel the passion and excitement of being alive - the leadership of the Zeus Instinct, the challenge of the Ares Instinct, the learning of the Apollo Instinct, and the networking connection of the Hermes Instinct to name a few.