Tolstoy: “I am a man [human]. How should I live? What do I do?”
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet." - Matt 5:13
The Salt
We’re humans. Therefore, how should we live? What do we do? Well, what good is salt if it’s lost the reason for its existence — to preserve foods or make them taste better? Considering a humans unparalleled potential and ability for selflessness in contrast to any other living thing that’s ever existed — as far as we know, of course — wouldn’t it become incredibly obvious what the reason for a creature as conscious and capable as a human is made to live for? Objectively, God or not: to strive to be as selfless as possible; to be capable of acknowledging any of its more barbaric and selfish thoughts or behaviors — at all in the first place — and abstain from them, for a purpose outside of itself. This is the “salt”: selflessness.
What good is a human that’s lost its purpose? What good are humans as a whole if we’ve lost our purpose as a whole? Crippling ourselves, defiling our own minds from the images of our past or potential futures we create in our heads via the double-edged sword that is our imagination, governing so much over how we feel and behave today; our desires and vanities for the sake of ourselves taking precedence over our design, i.e., building your house (your life) on the sand, on what’s as temporary as “breath” or “vapor” (“spirit”), like most people. Rather than on the rock, on what can withstand the tides of time, like Jesus or Socrates did; what ultimately reveals itself to be the truest life or, the “true life.”
Why don’t we ever see birds, for example, sitting around all day, stimulating their sense organs or crippling themselves by how they didn’t fulfill xyz desire or vanity for the sake of themselves via the way mankind has presently manipulated its environment and organized itself? Because the extent of how much less conscious birds (nature in general) are of themselves. Could you imagine what would happen if bees stopped doing what they were made to do? In favor of what they want out of their lives? Life on Earth, yet again, would be led to be extinguished, as it did roughly six other times over the last five billion years. Is there anything unique that humans as a whole bring to the table, similar to how the species of bees do for all life on Earth?
“Happy the meek — because they shall inherit the land.” - Matt 5:5 YLT
A day, even millenniums from now, where violence, at the very least, is considered a laughable part of our past as the idea of a King is to us now for example; not by supernatural means, but seen in the sense of Tolstoy’s personal, social, and divine conceptions of life. Through a painfully slow millenniums long transitioning into it. Without humans, life on Earth continues as it did for the last five billion years, with no great potential for anything to act upon itself or everything else — selfishness or selflessness (morality) upon an environment. This is what makes more conscious, capable beings — on any planet, unique: Its capacity for morality in contrast. But what if these beings begin to do the opposite of what they were designed for? As salt is useless without its taste, so would humans — from the point of view of an unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind, even from an atheist’s point of view — be useless without its purpose: Selflessness, to even and especially, the most extreme degrees. Rather than incessantly choosing itself all throughout its life as — out of inherency — a more conscious monkey would; and when the storm of death begins to slowly creep toward the shore of your conscience, where will you have built your house (your life)? Out on the sand? As most people would be inherently drawn to? "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” - Matt 7:27
"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction [selfishness], and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life [selflessness], and those who find it are few." - Matt 7:13
Take care of yourself. Nothing I wrote was all that deep, difficult to process, vague, or couched in obtuse language, but if you need it simplified and personalized:
How are you supposed to help others if you can’t even be bothered to learn to understand them? Are you just coasting by on the whims of society, randomly “fixing” the issues of people with more expertise and a better understanding of their wants and needs than you? And if not, without working on your understanding skills or having the time to look in the mirror, how would you know?
Touched-up any Frescos out of the goodness of your heart lately? Were your efforts appreciated?
I think I see what you’re saying. Do you have personal experience with this, if you don’t mind me asking?
I have, against all odds and intentions, surrounded myself with work martyrs and people who are altruistic to the point of self-degredation, yes. The company of saints brings its own forms of exhaustion.
“Saints” aren’t people that drop everything and rely on the hard work of others to sustain them. I’m sorry to hear you have a bad experience with a handful of people that take pacifism and non-violence and apply this black and white kind of perspective on them. That is, to be a pacifist one must never, under any circumstances, ever use violence. Or to be selfless to its extremes one must forgo all their possessions and expect their contemporaries to pick up after them; to sustain them.
One would only need to explain to these people that in a world where it’s either sink or swim, but we choose to swim together to some degree via things like socialism because we realize swimming individually only leaves us vulnerable and ultimately, swimming together to ease the burden for everyone as a whole is simply more efficient because that way no one drowns or is left behind due to inabilities both physically and mentally that some people are simply born with or inherit from the world’s hands getting a hold of them via trauma brought on from war or even social interactions.
So don’t blame the great principle just because imperfect people ever since don’t fully understand it and become confused by people of the past and present that lead people to think it needs to be either or — violence or non-violence; selflessness to its extremes with zero room for selfishness, and that there’s apparently no in between.
My point is, when the world is drowning in such people, the problem is hardly that no-one has spread “the great principle” loudly or far-enough.
The fact I have yet to see someone shouting about it react to the concepts of self-care and ineffective work-martyrs as anything they’ve ever encountered or even heard-about is baffling to the degree that it makes me question your sincerity.
My mother, her mother, my step-mother, mother-in-law and my wife’s aunts aren’t “exceptionally bad saints”, they are performing a role society has inculcated in people for generations. Even my wife seems to think self-care stops at hygeine, going to the gym and not letting her job get in the way of family events, and I had to beg her for years on the latter.
When you couldn’t even “grasp” the content of my first comment, you made the depths of your thought on this matter doubt-worthy. Me asking you to consider the pond beyond your own “reflection”(what you expect to see), the fish flopped-up onto shore and dying, the bird about to swoop in for a snack, the crawdads, leeches, and “un-sightly” residents of the water …
… basically, mine is not the black-and-white thought here. I do things the “saints” in my live are afraid to do, both for safety and “what will people think of me?” reasons, like pick-up hitch-hikers, give money, food(upon request) and free rides to pan-handlers; I’m not saying I can hold this against people who do not do those things, or don’t dwell on how to be self-sufficient so as not to be a burden to others.
If anything, I envy them their faith and trust in eachother, myself and society; It’s not that their form of altruism is burdensome beyond their social-circle that bothers me, its that they deserve better, and the people that they want to help ofteo aren’t ready to accept it from someone whose bearing and presentation itself seems pitiable or oblivious.
I never said altruism was bad, or that the people I’ve described are “the problem”, but YOU are presumably not one of them. Au contraire, yours is a message they love to listen-to, so wouldn’t it be nice if you could sprinkle in a word about self-care and treating one’s-self on occassion?
… but no, let’s go six comments-deep and spend dozens of paragraphs refuting anyone who does mention those things as if that person were preaching the word of Xenu or, shudders, prosperity gospel.
Are you saying the world is presently drowning in such people, or if it were to be drowning in such people?
It’s hands down the biggest problem; knowledge needs to be gained so therefore, someone needs to be willing to teach it. Once upon a time the value of selflessness, love, and it’s logic was no where near as assimilated within the hearts of men until people like Socrates or Jesus inspired others to even consider rising above what we would otherwise be more inherently drawn to if not for the knowledge of their influence: hate and selfishness.
Idk, obviously I can’t say for sure but I’m getting the impression you may be over exaggerating due to your obvious bias.
I could grasp it just fine, but I wasn’t clear on it as you write and explain things in a way that didn’t make it easy to understand initially, so I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what you were talking about first before giving a response.
Ah, so it’s ego that clouds your judgement. How do you know for a fact these people in particular you’re referring to, who don’t represent all the good hearted people everywhere as a whole, don’t do anything like those you listed? Based on what evidence? Could arrogance and hate be leading you your assumptions to become fact without genuinely knowing for sure?
Who deserves better?
My post isn’t about altruism at all. I’m sorry you got that impression. And the people you’re referring to are the farthest thing from the epidemic you’re dressing it up as.
I agree. But you definitely heavily implied it.
Absolutely not. They get enough of that from the hypocrisy [the acting] of their contemporaries so it’s a miracle they’re even willing to be selfless to its extremes to begin with. Besides, to what degree are these people just really depressed? And you’re not capable of seeing it due to your contempt for them and hate for the perspective I’m putting down. I’m not saying this for a fact, I’d obviously have no idea, just a suggestion. I would say however that in order to most efficiently love others, one must love themselves; the more one loves themself, the more effectively and more willing they are to love others. That said, I agree with the ancient Greeks: “Nothing too much (in excess)” - the second of three maxims chosen to be inscribed into the entrance of the temple of Apollo where the Oracle of Delphi resided in Ancient Greece.
Well to be fair the first two was me trying to make clear what you were initially trying to get across. And I’ll go as many comments as you need, friend. It sounds frustrating and idk what it’s like to have a family that’s apparently selfless to the point where it becomes a problem. I’d agree with you on that by the way, altruism can go sour provided people who haven’t been educated on the topic of selflessness get a hold of it. Or maybe these people are simply capable of seeing something you can’t due to their experiences in life. Idk, that’s what led me to the edge of selflessness myself, gaining the knowledge of the experience of the hate, evil, and selfishness that still flourishes throughout the world. Once you get a good taste of it for yourself it’s tough to look away from the value and potential of the only cure: love and selflessness.