thoughts on selfhood, altruism, alienation and other sophomoric touchy-feely bullshit
i should note - at risk of seeming pretentious - that i was reading some of ol' Freud and Nietzsche (the perv and the psycho) when i made this semi-journal-ish writing of my own thoughts, which i'm transcribing and editing here from my handwriting. Sorry for the two posts in one sitting, and sorry if this seems like gibberish - i'm rewriting parts:
Isolation or a feeling of separateness may lead to a lack of empathy, a lack of care about others. The feeling of separateness may also lead to resentment of others, and to jealously at their ability to interact. It could lead to the illusion - WRONGLY - that those others are not human, when in fact they are human and worthy of ethical treatment.
In addition, a feeling of powerlessness increases one's anger. However, maybe anger at others comes from anger at oneself for not living up to one's ideals. This could be linked to one's anger at others for imposing these ideals on one (whether or not they did).
There could be an unsuccessful attempt to translate one's feeling of separateness - meaning the self/other dichotomy - from selfishness to selflessness/altruism. However, the natural, instinctual desire for self-preservation prevents this attempted translation. Also, in this case, the desire for self-preservation and self-pleasure would boost or increase one's selfishness, becuase it is not mitigated (sublimated?) by linking others as an extension of oneself as most religious/moral people can do to some extent, large or small. That is, religious/moral people can to some degree prevent their instinctual desire for their own well-being and pleasure from turning into selfishness, by finding a way to identify others around them -- perhaps all of Creation -- and thus feel like helping others is a way to help themselves like their instincts say to do.
The problem for a person who feels isolated and separate is that he or she does not feel connected to others, and so the isolated person cannot do this linking their own well-being to others in his/her own mind. Since there is a great divide in the isolated person's mind between his or her-self and everyone else, the only way he or she can often think of to try to become altruistic and giving is by trying to turn his/her instinctual self-love -- self-preservation -- into self-hatred. The isolated person figures, WRONGLY, that it's a zero-sum game between his or herself and others -- either he/she wins or they do, etc. So the person is selfish and hates everyone who gives him or her pain or who gets in the way of his/her own pleasure. If the isolated person decides to try to be altruistic (likely, in order to avoid cosmic punishment), then that person will try to reverse this dichotomy, trying to hate his or her self in order to love others, since it's supposedly a zero-sum game.
What's important to stress is that one's instincts of self-preservation make it almost impossible (and maybe even totally impossible) to truly hate oneself in the sense of really wanting to give oneself pain and deprive oneself of all pleasure (which is different from, for example, saying "i'll give myself this pain exercising now so i can feel good with endorphins/self-esteem later."). Because self-hatred runs against the instincts, trying to hate oneself in the name of loving others one doesn't feel connected to anyway simply increases one's resentment of others (one feels one has to give up so much to serve others, with nothing in return).
It should also be noted that one may try to hate oneself for other reasons - such as not seeming good enough for one's own standards -- and that this hatred or anger toward oneself, being forbidden by the instincts, must have some outlet besides oneself, and so gets directed instead toward other people. That is, you're angry at others because you're really angry at yourself but can't admit or don't want to admit it.
i'd suggest here that the only way for one to stop hating others -- for whatever reason -- and to truly become altruistic and loving is by learning to connect oneself mentally to others and to see others as an extension of oneself.
**To emphasize, doing this is NOT a mere trick to play on oneself, but instead actually does reflect reality. Won't get into that here, but think about it -- the "self" is an illusion. At any rate, even if it's impossible to see this reality of unity, it still may be possible to identify one's fate and well-being with the well-being of others by believing -- probably correctly -- that one will receive some sort of cosmic punishment if one does not. This punishment could be hell -- perhaps only for a time and not forever -- or it could be the suffering of Buddhist dukkha brought on by one's own selfishness, but either way. If you want to be cheery, think of cosmic reward for doing good (and i know this is "spiritual selfishness", but when you're incurably selfish ... i don't know)
In the end, thinking that you are "one" with someone else might just be the same thing as thinking that what you do to/for someone else will come back to bite you or reward you. Just two ways of perceiving the same reality. God bless.
Isolation or a feeling of separateness may lead to a lack of empathy, a lack of care about others. The feeling of separateness may also lead to resentment of others, and to jealously at their ability to interact. It could lead to the illusion - WRONGLY - that those others are not human, when in fact they are human and worthy of ethical treatment.
In addition, a feeling of powerlessness increases one's anger. However, maybe anger at others comes from anger at oneself for not living up to one's ideals. This could be linked to one's anger at others for imposing these ideals on one (whether or not they did).
There could be an unsuccessful attempt to translate one's feeling of separateness - meaning the self/other dichotomy - from selfishness to selflessness/altruism. However, the natural, instinctual desire for self-preservation prevents this attempted translation. Also, in this case, the desire for self-preservation and self-pleasure would boost or increase one's selfishness, becuase it is not mitigated (sublimated?) by linking others as an extension of oneself as most religious/moral people can do to some extent, large or small. That is, religious/moral people can to some degree prevent their instinctual desire for their own well-being and pleasure from turning into selfishness, by finding a way to identify others around them -- perhaps all of Creation -- and thus feel like helping others is a way to help themselves like their instincts say to do.
The problem for a person who feels isolated and separate is that he or she does not feel connected to others, and so the isolated person cannot do this linking their own well-being to others in his/her own mind. Since there is a great divide in the isolated person's mind between his or her-self and everyone else, the only way he or she can often think of to try to become altruistic and giving is by trying to turn his/her instinctual self-love -- self-preservation -- into self-hatred. The isolated person figures, WRONGLY, that it's a zero-sum game between his or herself and others -- either he/she wins or they do, etc. So the person is selfish and hates everyone who gives him or her pain or who gets in the way of his/her own pleasure. If the isolated person decides to try to be altruistic (likely, in order to avoid cosmic punishment), then that person will try to reverse this dichotomy, trying to hate his or her self in order to love others, since it's supposedly a zero-sum game.
What's important to stress is that one's instincts of self-preservation make it almost impossible (and maybe even totally impossible) to truly hate oneself in the sense of really wanting to give oneself pain and deprive oneself of all pleasure (which is different from, for example, saying "i'll give myself this pain exercising now so i can feel good with endorphins/self-esteem later."). Because self-hatred runs against the instincts, trying to hate oneself in the name of loving others one doesn't feel connected to anyway simply increases one's resentment of others (one feels one has to give up so much to serve others, with nothing in return).
It should also be noted that one may try to hate oneself for other reasons - such as not seeming good enough for one's own standards -- and that this hatred or anger toward oneself, being forbidden by the instincts, must have some outlet besides oneself, and so gets directed instead toward other people. That is, you're angry at others because you're really angry at yourself but can't admit or don't want to admit it.
i'd suggest here that the only way for one to stop hating others -- for whatever reason -- and to truly become altruistic and loving is by learning to connect oneself mentally to others and to see others as an extension of oneself.
**To emphasize, doing this is NOT a mere trick to play on oneself, but instead actually does reflect reality. Won't get into that here, but think about it -- the "self" is an illusion. At any rate, even if it's impossible to see this reality of unity, it still may be possible to identify one's fate and well-being with the well-being of others by believing -- probably correctly -- that one will receive some sort of cosmic punishment if one does not. This punishment could be hell -- perhaps only for a time and not forever -- or it could be the suffering of Buddhist dukkha brought on by one's own selfishness, but either way. If you want to be cheery, think of cosmic reward for doing good (and i know this is "spiritual selfishness", but when you're incurably selfish ... i don't know)
In the end, thinking that you are "one" with someone else might just be the same thing as thinking that what you do to/for someone else will come back to bite you or reward you. Just two ways of perceiving the same reality. God bless.
posted by jlhart7 at 6:23 PM
2 Comments:
Hi.
That last paragragh - to me - sounded really like what was supposedly, perhaps... meant by Jesus when he said "Love Thy neighbour as Thyself"...
It also echoes the "That art Thou" of Buddhism.
I find the problem here however, is that even though I can sometimes FEEL these truths as I wander through my life (or the blogosphere...) I 'shift' back and forth between sub-personalities that 'get and feel that' and others that don't.
By sub-personalities, I mean the way that Roberto Assagioli referred to them in his framework Psychosynthesis...
At some point in my next few years I want to write/teach/expound on that - that the 'mirroring' of self/Self that you have talked about is done through and in tandem with the people in our lives 'through' these sub-personalities of ours... The blog world is expanding the potentials for this considerably, I suspect.
Blessing All Our Connections,
Barry
Thank уou fоr аny othеr magnificent article.
Wheгe else may just anyοne get thаt tyрe of information in
ѕuch an ideal way of writing? Ӏ have a
presеntation next ωeeκ,
and I'm on the search for such information.
my web site; toy
Post a Comment
<< Home