Selflessness & Selfishness
Yet another knot of illusion in the world are these two terms which are so closely related to the same entity the “self” or “I” but yet so complex in its own ways. They perplex our life’s in ways that we are totally unaware of their nuances and its impact on our behaviors and or existence. For the benefit of my readers I wanted to bring some clarity to these contradicting subjects of human behaviors. I will try to articulate them to the best of my abilities and encourage you to contribute or challenge me more ☺. And I hope that my writings will stimulate you to learn more about yourself and bring more awareness to you.
For the context herein I refer to the self as “I” , the gross “me” as we see and feel ourselves in this world.
Selfishness-
As long as we are and will continue to be in this world the “I” needs to exist in one way or the other and for it to exist it has to satisfy all basic and necessary conditions of existence.
The “I” has all its needs, vanities and sanities and therefore all our actions are either inspired to keep the “I” happy (Selfishness to Narcissism) and or are in the direction of protecting the “I” (having its self Respect)
A person who continuously ratifies the needs of his “I” is subject to the dualistic pleasures and pains in life
There is no Escape for the “I” from the worldly nuances
I must clarify that there is absolutely nothing wrong and its fundamentally needed that one constantly gratifies the needs of “I” to be successful and happy in many ways. The more he is successful in gratifying all his needs the more “I” will be significant in such individuals and thereby will be subject to all its nuances.
Selflessness
Selflessness is state of mind where there is an absence of short term gratifications to the “I” contrastingly it’s a state of mind where the manifestation of such behaviors tend to have a fulfillment of a long term needs of the “I”. Such “need” need not necessarily be an impact on the self but could be something like helping other cancer patients in the backdrop of a loss of close kith and kin to cancer. In such cases the gratification from such behavior’s is still owed back to the “I” . Here the “I” is more subdued in comparison to a person with acute awareness of the “I”
Considered be the nobler side of the self in general – is a illusionary side of selfishness and would still ratify the self in one way or the other.
In other words and I emphasize “generally” many of our acts which we believe is selfless in indeed gratifying the notion of the self or the “I” in us.
The exceptions to these are those individuals in the history who have achieved a state of complete absence of the “I” – well yes they then seize to exist – It isn’t death exactly may be I don’t know yet or may be with the limited human abilities of any sorts of assessments we could only call the person dead.
A lot of “Nice People” in world will exhibit this behavior of tending to be selfless – while the reasons of such manifestations could be a million beyond the scope of this article. I read the book “ No more MR Nice Guy” by Dr. Robert A Glover which propounded the theory of focusing on continuously gratifying the needs of the “I” in order to be successful in many relationship’s overall. His articulation is founded on such reasons that are core to “Nice Peoples” selflessness in general*.
SO!, In contrast to both these thoughts I feel that people who tend to me selfless are generally the ones who have a matured or advanced or rather different state of emotional responses and a different state of mind and character and therefore are different individuals that the ones who have acute awareness of “I”.
People with acute awareness of the “I” tend to be oriented more towards materialistic advancements of ones needs ( Including emotional)
People with higher degree of selflessness tend to see the “Self” or the “I” in larger communities than restricted to individualistic state. The “I” is more seen in the “WE”. The sense of “I” and its aspirations are channelized to mobilize fulfillment of a larger cause. This could then transpire to building of an ability to influence masses in certain directions.
It is therefore that either selflessness or selfishness are both acts of gratifying the self.
A condition ( unknown to me- I could only imagine it mathematically) where a person is at his epitome of selflessness tends to be closer to a state of absence of self. And I could only imagine that he therefore medically could seize to exist, or spiritually may have attained self realization.
Meaning a more evolved state of mind would have less individualistic needs alternatively the needs are much broader.
It is totally important that for one to exist, or exist peacefully one therefore needs to have a sense of purpose
That sense of purpose could be – buying more gold, having more fun, cars, girls, clubs, publicity, more attention etc for those individuals who are happy in these little gratifications of the “I”
That sense of purpose could also be – Uplifting of communities, Large Scale influence or being the catalyst or contributions to such influences, conscious or subconscious sacrifices of individualistic needs, etc.
I'd say whether selflessness or selfishness that it should be a choice that you make to be in harmony with yourself. A choice that defines you and your behavior’s. You must we all aware of the nuances of both the choices and accept either or both of it with utmost honesty and be at peace with it. There isn’t an right or a wrong thing with either of them! Since both are actually ways of life linked to the same “I”.
Overall – When I look at the world that is now steaming with Arab uprisings, many debt crisis and therefore instigates a “surface treatment” retaliatory response like the occupy wall street indicates a moral deficit in the world that could potentially subdue such trends intrinsically. The “more” of decades have left us with “Less” of tomorrow. The reason being an unprecedented and overly consumption of resources leads to over gratifications of the “I”. this also indicates that the demographics is mostly contained of individuals who have a greater sense of “I” and a greater need for gratifying the “I”. There is absolutely nothing wrong and is definitely needed. However if the world where to have a few more individual’s as leaders who could demonstrate a greater will to a sustainable growth and or sharing the joy a little more with the communities a sense of balance could then prevail in the world. A sense of such hope could then inspire us to move forward with a great leap of faith about our tomorrow. A sense of balance in both selflessness and selfishness could then make this world a better place to LIVE ☺
Best wishes to all of you, for 2012. May this year bring to us many more reasons to smile, Hope, Play, Sing, hug & love each other. May it be ever fulfilling and transform conscience to make us more better individual’s.
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