the nature of altruism

Recently a situation occurred in which I found myself feeling outshined by Sera. I felt that she was more compassionate than I was and I judged myself very harshly. I felt very bad about not being compassionate enough. Later, talking about it with Kyeli, I found myself thrown into utter confusion about, well, everything. The way people are, why anyone does anything, ever. Please allow me to share that confusion with you. (:

You do what you want to do. When you feel conflicting wants, you may be disappointed that you can’t have both. When you attempt to achieve a want and fail, you may be disappointed that you failed. All that makes sense. But what doesn’t make sense is being disappointed about what you want or do not want. There’s this pressure in society that tells you that to be a good person, you must be a selfless and altruistic person. But if you follow it down to the root, everything bottoms out in selfishness. Ultimately, you do what you want to do, and if you want to help someone else, you will. But at the root of it you’re doing it because you want to. Since everything you do is exactly what you want to do, you’re not even capable of making an unselfish act.

So where the hell did this social pressure toward altruism come from? How could this pressure have come to exist when it’s a pressure to be something that’s not even possible? My best guess is that it’s kind of a want-infection meme. It’s a pressure that affects what we want, and steers us toward wanting to do nice things for others. If it succeeds, it will affect what we want (a form of metaprogramming) and hence we will do that. And evolutionarily, it makes sense for us to be genetically and/or socially predisposed to altruism in some forms, because it’s evolutionarily advantageous.

I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. From a social perspective, altruism makes sense, because externally, the effect is that you’re doing things to help others rather than to help yourself. But from an internal perspective, everything is self-motivated. And from an internal perspective, wanting to help others is just one want among many others. And looking at it that way brings to bear all the tools and models I already have about dealing with my wants. It’s a nice thing to want to help others. But it’s not a nice or useful thing to beat yourself up for desiring one thing and not desiring another. If your wants are in conflict, then find some way to bring them into alignment and harmony. It’s not serving you to be hurt by the conflict. Just figure out what you most want to do, and do it. Figure out who you most want to be, and Be.

Related posts:
• Everything you know about human nature is wrong.

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