Tuesday, February 19, 2002
having trouble keeping my eyes open. good god, i'm just sitting here, and my eyelids are drooooping. it is just like class used to be. it is a wierd feeling to have again, it doesn't happen that often any more.
i was in the shower, and i got to thinking about stuff. i was thinking about trav and air for some reason. this was frightening, because i was in the shower. anyways, somehow thinking about them got me to thinking about moving out, which got me thinking about certain aspects of the way our society works, or at least my opinions on the subject. I ended up concluding that everyone's number one purpose in life should be to look out for themselves. basically, you keep yourself alive and relatively happy first. everything else should be secondary. i think in essence, everyone does do this anyways.
this brought about some thinking about altruism. altruism is non-existant. when the word altruism comes up in a conversation and the person is talking about themselves, you know the person is full of shit. this was my base arguement with myself. i concluded that no one ever does anything with out some sort of motive that will benefit them. no one donates to charity just to help the cause. people may convince themselves that they are doing it to help the cause, but that is bullshit. people donate to charity to make themselves feel better, and to gain social standing. it is purely selfish. if they donate to a charity, they can tell all their friends about the wonderful thing they did. hell, they can tell themselves all about the wonderful person they have become.
this of course is a very bitter way to look at things. so i got to thinking again. in a more primative society this would be completely true. there is no altruism in nature. none. the only goal in nature is to stay alive long enough to pass on your genes. humans have managed to remove themselves from this. i think the thing that makes us the most different is the fact that we understand the concept, and therefore can do things to alter it. it is kind of like evolution. anyone who says that evolution is not a true concept is just ignorant, in my mind. but, because we understand the underlying theory behind evolution, we can do things to alter its course, thus removing ourselves from the natural order of things.
back to the matter at hand though. because we have removed ourselves from nature, we can have deeper understandings of things. this allows us to formulate connections with objects and people. i guess on a basic level, our mind begins to pick out patterns in things, in anything. when our mind finds these patterns, whether they truely exist or not, it trys to find further connections. things like friendship, loyalty, love, etc etc etc are formulated from these patterns. its not even that our mind is really fooling itself into believing in such things. this is the way our mind works, which validates these sorts of feelings to a certain extent. once we can form these connections, all of which the greater theory called "love" encompasses in my opinion, we can also alter our natural order of just protecting ourselves. we consider protecting those that we love just as important as protecting ourselves. this is where altruism starts to play a role.
on a base level, it still isn't truely altruistic. we are protecting the people we love, because without these people, life would just plain suck. we are protecting those people that make us feel good, which means we are protecting our own happyness. true altruism can never exist. of course, nothing can ever really exist in a completely pure state...
anyways, don't quote me on this or anything. this is just the way my thought process was going in the shower a few days ago. i really wanted to write it all down as i was thinking about it, but i was in the shower. then after i got out, i forgot. i'm sure there were a bunch of key points i forgot that would make the entire thing make more sense, but it has been a few days.
i was in the shower, and i got to thinking about stuff. i was thinking about trav and air for some reason. this was frightening, because i was in the shower. anyways, somehow thinking about them got me to thinking about moving out, which got me thinking about certain aspects of the way our society works, or at least my opinions on the subject. I ended up concluding that everyone's number one purpose in life should be to look out for themselves. basically, you keep yourself alive and relatively happy first. everything else should be secondary. i think in essence, everyone does do this anyways.
this brought about some thinking about altruism. altruism is non-existant. when the word altruism comes up in a conversation and the person is talking about themselves, you know the person is full of shit. this was my base arguement with myself. i concluded that no one ever does anything with out some sort of motive that will benefit them. no one donates to charity just to help the cause. people may convince themselves that they are doing it to help the cause, but that is bullshit. people donate to charity to make themselves feel better, and to gain social standing. it is purely selfish. if they donate to a charity, they can tell all their friends about the wonderful thing they did. hell, they can tell themselves all about the wonderful person they have become.
this of course is a very bitter way to look at things. so i got to thinking again. in a more primative society this would be completely true. there is no altruism in nature. none. the only goal in nature is to stay alive long enough to pass on your genes. humans have managed to remove themselves from this. i think the thing that makes us the most different is the fact that we understand the concept, and therefore can do things to alter it. it is kind of like evolution. anyone who says that evolution is not a true concept is just ignorant, in my mind. but, because we understand the underlying theory behind evolution, we can do things to alter its course, thus removing ourselves from the natural order of things.
back to the matter at hand though. because we have removed ourselves from nature, we can have deeper understandings of things. this allows us to formulate connections with objects and people. i guess on a basic level, our mind begins to pick out patterns in things, in anything. when our mind finds these patterns, whether they truely exist or not, it trys to find further connections. things like friendship, loyalty, love, etc etc etc are formulated from these patterns. its not even that our mind is really fooling itself into believing in such things. this is the way our mind works, which validates these sorts of feelings to a certain extent. once we can form these connections, all of which the greater theory called "love" encompasses in my opinion, we can also alter our natural order of just protecting ourselves. we consider protecting those that we love just as important as protecting ourselves. this is where altruism starts to play a role.
on a base level, it still isn't truely altruistic. we are protecting the people we love, because without these people, life would just plain suck. we are protecting those people that make us feel good, which means we are protecting our own happyness. true altruism can never exist. of course, nothing can ever really exist in a completely pure state...
anyways, don't quote me on this or anything. this is just the way my thought process was going in the shower a few days ago. i really wanted to write it all down as i was thinking about it, but i was in the shower. then after i got out, i forgot. i'm sure there were a bunch of key points i forgot that would make the entire thing make more sense, but it has been a few days.
