Does selfishness ever bother you?

[lucksack]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, tit for tat. It's not wanting some tit that's the problem, because everybody wants tit, but when you become an unreliable and difficult to deal with source of tat. You should always carry some extra tat, just to be safe and not look like a moocher. And spread it around a little, and be able to talk about something besides tit.

[/ QUOTE ]

A+

I don't understand your second post though, when it's so obvious you get more than you give (a few little presents vs. "million bucks").

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Blarg, I like your post. Do you think that you are in a way being selfish by seeking out your own pleasure?

This could go in huge circles all day long.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but it's still giving. And in a number of instances, I'd do it even if there were no feedback at all or negative feedback. The kid hates my gift or immediately ignores it, people don't like my cooking, mom isn't at home to give me a smile and say thanks for clearing out her yard. The initial impetus is the same regardless of the reward, and essentially unselfish. It feels good anyway! There can be an essential pleasure in doing good things, even if it's not rewarded.

Like that saying, virtue is its own reward. It pretty much has to be, quite often. A lot of the good, maybe even the best things we'll ever do go essentially unnoticed or unappreciated, but depending on what kind of a person we are, we do them anyway. Those who don't, are definitely more selfish, regardless of whether we derive any satisfaction from doing good things or the right thing. You still have to choose to do them! It's the initial impulse that counts. Whether anyone will ever know or care, or do so as much as you might hope, is just a blind gamble.

[BPA234]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Blarg, I like your post. Do you think that you are in a way being selfish by seeking out your own pleasure?

This could go in huge circles all day long.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but it's still giving. And in a number of instances, I'd do it even if there were no feedback at all or negative feedback. The kid hates my gift or immediately ignores it, people don't like my cooking, mom isn't at home to give me a smile and say thanks for clearing out her yard. The initial impetus is the same regardless of the reward, and essentially unselfish. It feels good anyway! There can be an essential pleasure in doing good things, even if it's not rewarded.

Like that saying, virtue is its own reward. It pretty much has to be, quite often. A lot of the good, maybe even the best things we'll ever do go essentially unnoticed or unappreciated, but depending on what kind of a person we are, we do them anyway. Those who don't, are definitely more selfish, regardless of whether we derive any satisfaction from doing good things or the right thing. You still have to choose to do them! It's the initial impulse that counts. Whether anyone will ever know or care, or do so as much as you might hope, is just a blind gamble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly, you are a selfish bastard.

[Blarg]

Caught in the act!

[daveT]

The problem with the word "selfish" is that it has a negative connotation. We think of selfish as the kid who has a whole cake and won't share it. There is no word that is able state a selfish desire without sounding bad. Take "self satisfying," and how it relies on the word "self."

Then there is selfless. Is it even possible to be selfless? Throw yourself on a bomb to save fellow soldiers. Can't it be equated to a selfish desire to be remembered as a hero, for some one else to appreciate and always owe you gratitude. This example is one that disturbs me because this has to be premeditated. No normal human being is going to throw himself directly on top of danger. What is the motivation for going to bed every night thinking about doing this heroic act, and then working your brain to actually execute it when the opportunity arises?

[lucksack]

I didn't want a discussion about psychological egoism, but if you get more pleasure from doing "unselfish" things than what you lose in doing them (money for example), and you know it, you're not really being unselfish. I think a lot of young people don't know the pleasure/happiness they would get from being "unselfish" and thus appear more selfish than older people, when they really aren't.

[Blarg]

Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. As said, the results vary, and sometimes you know going in that something good you do will go unappreciated.

Getting some sense of good feeling for doing it doesn't make an act unselfish. For one thing, as you intimate, it's a matter of degree. Working your ass off for a smile isn't really getting paid in kind, and no real payment is requested anyway. It's just a gift. For another, it leaves out the possibility that maturity will grant you the ability to find pleasure in unselfish things you used to be too selfish to find pleasure in. That narrows the pool of unselfish people to punks, dopes, and the oblivious, which seems inherently unworkable, especially as those people are the least likely to do anything unselfish in the first place.

Regarding young people or others, I can't agree that people failing to do unselfish things are no more selfish than people who actually go ahead and do unselfish things.

[daveT]

lucksack, welcome to the Lounge, where everything gets dissected, flipped, altered, and concludes in a flow and path that no one really thinks will end.

Obviously, every one, regardless of age (cannot believe you pulled out THAT card), cannot stand people that:

1- Blabber on and on about themselves
2- Takes free stuff and feels so entitled.
3- Freeloads.

All bad qualities to be sure.

Take a simple boyfriend/ girlfriend thing. Guy/gal wants one thing: a good time. How do we accomplish this? We force each other to have a good time by smiling, telling jokes, talking, acting interested in each other's conversation (admit, you not ALWAYS interested, even on a first date). The pleasure of giving a good time is reciprocated. Selfless? I don't know.

Conceptually, I cannot wrap my brain around how things would work without selfishness, and I mean this word in a good way. Parents "want to have kids" not "give a soul a life." It is from that initial want from that first date that continues until the end.

I think about Carnegie's story about the random compliment he gave to the postal worker. Selfless, really?

I have given random compliments, but even this could be a selfish endeavor. I would only give a compliment to those I feel deserve it. Ultimately, I feel good about myself for giving the compliment.

I think that selflessness would be about just doing because. You get no emotional/ monetary/ physical return on your action.

This could get interesting, and I have plenty of directions of though here, but it would be good to direct the thread a little bit.

[lucksack]

If no one does anything unselfish, then how could someone be more selfish than someone else.. it just seems like that, but I think unselfishness is only an illusion.

But for some it can be hard to live without tricking oneself to believe this illusion, since we are so social by nature.

I think what you call "maturity" here, is just accomplishing everything one used to think would make him happy, noticing it didn't and then trying something else (helping others).

[lucksack]

dave, thanks. The reason I posted here (and not on SMP or OOT) was that I'd like the discussion be more "practical" while still serious about whether or not this bothers people, and how and when, and how can one live and be happy in a selfish world when we truly need other people in our lives.