Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Selflessness Does Not Exist
To summarize, there is no such thing as selflessness, there is only selfishness in this world. While you may think that there is selflessness, it is technically correct. I will elaborate. Selflessness is simply a type of selfishness. Selfishness is defined colloquially as the desire to benefit oneself. The rule of selfishness stands true above all else. Take the act of helping someone else. This is sometimes called selflessness. Say that you are helping them with their home work. This might be selflessness or it might just be that you want something in return. While this may not be evident in that specific moment, because you helped them, you expect them to help you back later on. This is the benefit of a co-beneficial relationship possibly called "friendship". Because you expect something back, you are actually not selfless, you are selfish. While other people might be thinking, hang on, I don't want anything back from them, I only do it to help them, I never expect anything back. Half of you are right and half are wrong. There are people that are unaware that they expect things back, so you still fit into this category. To address the others in this room, you help people because it makes you feel better. You are helping people to stimulate the reward cortex of your brain. This is actually benefiting yourself. You get that feeling of goodness about yourself because you helped someone. Do you see now why selflessness doesn't exist? We only do selfless things to help ourselves so therefore, they are not actually selfless. This entire conversation stems from primal humans which I reference a lot. In the days of hunter-gatherers, our goal was to live for ourselves and ourselves only. We want to live, this is survival instinct. That is the point of life, we strive to survive. Everything we do is selfish and there is no denying that.
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Darren, this is a very insightful post. It's obviously true, even though few people would ever really consider it. I can think of a perfect example of this, which is by far the simplest. Perhaps "primitive" is a better word, because it comes from our closest cousin, the chimpanzee. In the wild, chimps often hunt monkeys and antelopes and other such animals. When a male chimp makes a kill, he will often share it. But there's always a reason, and there's always something in it for him. If he is a low-ranking male, he will share his kill with a higher-ranking male in an attempt to win his favor and boost his social position. If he is a high-ranking male, he will share it with other high-ranking males (or the Alpha male) to cement the bonds of brotherhood that bind them into a cohesive unit reminiscent of a military garrison. And when a male shares his meat with a female and her baby, you can't help but say "Aw, that's so sweet!" and feel warm and fuzzy inside...until you realize that the chimp just wants to get busy with the lady chimp. Yeah, humans aren't the only species where the ladies go crazy over a guy who loves babies. In large part because of this, male primates are very good with children; a silverback gorilla, strong enough to break a leopard's spine with one jaw, will spend hours playing with his sons and daughters because it keeps the females on his side. Of course, there are undoubtedly some altruistic moments, such as when adult chimps take in orphaned babies or feed low-ranking members of their society; but, as you mentioned, these are usually for the sake of establishing the mutually beneficial relationship of friendship.
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