Altruism and Selfishness
As humans, we compete for food, for jobs, for honors, for love, for everything in fact. Our creator has made the notions of power, success, and failure part of our Universe. Those who say that men have corrupted our world are oblivious of the reality that the whole Universe incorporates the same notion. We have competed with 40 millions other spermatozoids to become the only chosen one. Never forget that we live only by taking other lives, animal or vegetal. There is nothing we can do about it. Such is our nature.
The Universe is so built that there exists no pure altruism – the strict basic rule is complete selfishness. However, the Entity that governs us enjoys intelligence far beyond our own comprehension. We understand what we have to understand and that is ok.
I judge people all the time in my daily conversation and so do you. We are both humans and what we do is what should be done. Our mission is to observe and learn from our environment and experiments. We must strive to become better persons, understand other people, understand Mother Nature, and understand the active principles and practices governing this Universe that is our abode.
Altruism is concerned with unselfishness and devotion to the welfare of others. Its antonyms are selfishness, egocentrism and egotism. Altruism is a state of mind, rather than a behavior.
In a way, even our most generous acts are totally selfish. They are so because they are done in satisfaction of urges. For instance, a person in love has two reasons for being generous: one, she wants to please her love and get love in return. Two, she is afraid of losing her loved one, and is willing to pay a price to tie up her feeling. All other reasons are derivatives of these motivations.
For our purpose, altruism must be seen as a state of mind. You come first, but you wish the best for your fellow men and the entire world. There is more to altruism than supplying material things. Caring for others is the most precious gift one can give. The rest follows automatically.
The worst terrorist could and, usually, rightly consider himself a good and generous person. He could feel noble for giving up his entire life for the success of his cause. According to his religious beliefs, he could feel a saint and a martyr, believing that his actions will earn him and his family a blissful life in heaven while his loved ones will have their material needs met during all their lives. He may also be full of hate for his enemies but his creator is the intelligence who has included such emotions in his creation. This form of reasoning takes us back to the question of reality. What we perceive as reality is not necessarily others people's ones. That man you see as a monster, others see him as a hero ready to die for a cause he believes in. Our perceptions are very personal and unique.
See real life as a dream where others exist only for the duration of your dreams. The morning after, should you ask someone why he did what he did, and said what he said, in your dream, he wouldn’t be able to answer your question. You saw him, even touched him in your dream but, according to him, he did not exist in the form you describe. You're the only one with that knowledge.
Make no mistake: you’re on your own. However you can get as much help as you can take. One sure way of getting it is to start giving a lot of help yourself. Spread happiness and you will be rewarded with more happiness.
Let’s now revert back to the notion of pure selfishness to repeat what I already expressed using different terms: Human beings are perfectly selfish but nature has its own way of compelling us to share with our fellow men. Happiness is kept out of our hands for as long as we do not share with our likes. We need our fellow men for everything. Think for a while of a life on Earth that would be entirely yours. All riches would be yours. You would own all the land; no sharing. Nobody to fight you and nobody to appreciate, admire and love you. Living only for oneself is a dreary perspective. We are lucky to have someone to share our good fortune.