It's funny how saying something like the statement in the title of this post has a way of immediately getting a bunch of people's hackles up.
And yet? We are selfish.
We're "selfish" in the sense that we would like our lives to turn out the way we envision, and every time we are faced with a situation and a choice, we are going to act in the way we perceive — we believe — will ultimately best serve ourselves.
"But I do stuff for people all the time that's for THEIR best interest, not MINE!"
Selflessness?
It certainly looks that way, at least on the surface.
But why are you doing these things for other people?
I say this because I do things for other people quite frequently, but I am also cognizant of the fact that "I am part of that equation." Even in selfLESSness
I might help my neighbor fix his lawnmower because it's the right thing to do, but subconsciously I'm also sick and tired of being startled every time that thing backfires, like a gunshot, and I'm sick and tired of listening to him cursing his mower.
I do things to help in the world because by helping make a better world (my perception and belief) I'm ultimately also helping to make a better world for myself to live in. Keeping the hedge neatly trimmed keeps the neighborhood "Hedge Police" from tracking me down and complaining, but it also helps maintain a nice appearance in the neighborhood overall, which helps our property value.
Selfishness = Bad?
What tends to make it a challenge for people to wrap their heads around "selfishness" is partly that we have often been taught that selfishness is a bad thing, and partly that much of what we derive — the "rewards," if you will — for our alleged "selfishness" comes in the form of rather nebulous intangibles... in a world that tends to be heavily oriented towards the tangible.
"But I don't stand to GAIN anything!!!"
Yes. Yes, you do.
A good example is when we take a seemingly "selfless" action to help someone else... and yet, in our subconscious mind we're aware that doing so will reduce interpersonal friction and potential judgment, later.
Mostly, we don't like to "feel bad" and when someone is judging, criticizing, belittling or getting angry with us, it tends to feel bad. Unless, of course, we have an "inner script" running whereby it somehow feels good to elicit those kinds of responses from people.
Either way, the choice is "selfish," in the sense that we end up deriving something as a result of the action/deed/interaction.
The thing that makes selfishness a challenge to understand is that it can have both positive and negative manifestations. And we tend to direct most of our attention at the negative side; even more at the "toxic negative" side.
I'm not going to get too far down the rabbithole of psychopathy and sociopathy, since that's enough material for an entire separate article.
But consider, for a moment, the kid who's always throwing rocks at hornet's nests because he thinks it's "funny" to watch the hornets swarm in a rage. Maybe he even thinks it's "funny" when some of the kids standing nearby get stung; maybe it makes him feel like he's "having an effect." He doesn't think it's "funny" when the hornets actually sting him or when he gets an ass-whooping from his dad for throwing rocks... but that still doesn't stop him from throwing more rocks at more hornet's nests next week.
Now, we might declare that he is "mental" and that he can't possibly be acting in a "selfish" (self-interest) fashion, but consider the fact that "getting stung" and "getting an ass-kicking" actually allows him to stay in a state of supporting his perception of reality that the world is a mean, rough and unfair place.
By getting stung and beaten, his internal "construct" gets to remain unchallenged, which — "twisted" as it might be — affords him a measure of constancy.
Of course, none of that happens on a conscious level... it's all "behind the scenes" of the public veils and disguises we wear, as it were.
Self-Inquiry...
Objectively examining and being conscious of our selfishness takes some practice, as well as a willingness to face parts of our personal realities and beliefs that we may not like or "want to be true." But just because you don't want a thing to be true doesn't mean that it isn't true.
I personally got serious about the process of what you might call "rigorous self-inquiry" somewhere in my mid-30's after an extended time in psychotherapy taught me many valuable things yet left me with the feeling that the answers seemed somehow incomplete.
25 years later, I am still uncovering layers of hidden truths about myself, and my motivations... underscoring the old truism that learning is a life-long experience!
Simply being willing to examine and even embrace our particular version of selfishness as part of our truth can be very helpful in understanding not only personal and family dynamics, but also work dynamics and even the dynamics that run within a structure such as Hive or a community like Proof-of-Brain.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!
How about YOU? Are you aware of your own "selfish" motives? Or do you reject the idea that we're all selfish? Would you agree that selfishness isn't necessarily NEGATIVE, regardless of what social conditioning might teach us? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210719 16:07 PDT
0302/1545