Did you know that for all our talk about the ‘pursuit of happiness,’ we actually take a very dim view of people who seek it? We see the pursuit of pleasure as hedonistic. Old religious paradigms that encourage austerity and sacrifice and suffering as the only path toward true salvation have caused us to doubt the relevance or even the spiritual safety of just being happy.
We are taught to be of service to humanity, but what good is raising the level of the water in the harbor so that all boats go up if your anchor is still tethered at the old water level? Everyone’s boat goes up but yours. Is that what we are meant to do? Where’s the logic?
If I consider you to be more important than me, how is that a respect for all of creation? Aren’t I a part of creation, too? These are the ideas we have been ingrained with which confuse us when it comes time to express our compassion for others.
We have become infected with a belief that we do not matter. And how is that a good posture for humanity? For if we truly don’t believe that we matter, our inherent desire for equality still equalizes us—in the wrong direction. If I’m not worthy, neither are you. We will be equal one way or the other.
Which brings me to the paradigm of altruism. By definition, altruism is “the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. in zoology it is the behavior of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.” It’s that last part “at its own expense” which causes us grief. Must it be at our expense? Must we serve others to the exclusion of, even detriment of, ourselves? I’m not saying that we should exclude others, quite the opposite. The trick is in finding ways to be of service that are in alignment with who we are as people.
One day, Abraham Lincoln was discussing this very point with a friend when they happened upon a big old pig stuck in the mud. Lincoln went down into the mud patch and pulled her to safety, ruining his clothes in the process.
His friend commented that that could not have been for his own benefit. Lincoln replied that of course it was. If he hadn't rescued her he would have worried about her for the rest of the day. That’s actually what altruism is supposed to mean. It means: I love because I am loved. Lincoln clearly saw the pig’s happiness as being equally worthy as his own.
So I’d like to now state clearly that altruism, as it is defined by our society, is a lie. It is an impossibility. We can never be utterly disinterested in what we do. And one can say that altruism exists in nature. You’d have the support of many scientists. Many animal species sacrifice themselves for one another without apparent benefit. Unless you call the perpetuation of the species a benefit. And that’s the benefit which non-sentient animals are wired to choose. It satisfies their instinctual needs to serve the species by helping the herd. An elephant helps the herd by adopting orphaned elephant calves. A bee helps the herd by stinging the enemy of the hive, even though to sting means certain death for the bee. But it dies satisfied that it has fulfilled its instinctive purpose.
It may sound as if I am a pessimist when I say that altruism as defined does not exist. But I think this is freeing. We are not being asked to do unto others in ways that we would not let them do unto us. We are not being encouraged to ignore our own desires and dreams in favor of others.’ But when we think that way we do things like perpetuate unhealthy marriages “for the sake of the children” because that what parental selflessness suggests we do. And while every situation is different, forcing a child to live in an unloving household is not in the child’s best interest.
So the lesson here is not to be self-less, but self-full. Involve all of your desires and dreams when deciding upon a course of service to another. That doesn’t mean you will have it easy. Some things which give us the most pleasure take hard work, determination, and doing things which we may feel are unpleasant. But they are toward a larger goal of not only peace in us, but peace on earth. They are in pursuit of happiness in the most sacred of ways. Excluding no one, especially ourselves, in the desire to be of service to humanity in the most profound and fulfilling of ways.
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