Altruism, Selfishness and Self Love

Last Sunday during a conversation with a couple after worship, Megan and Geoff, I admitted to my personal Kryptonite, my weakness, my false God if you like. It is what others think of me. I have this need to be seen as a good man and that at times it gets me into trouble. That said there are worse things to be. Such as not caring a jot what others think of you. “I don’t care” must be the loneliest phrase in the English language. I suspect that hell must be a state of indifference to not care about others, to live without any thought or consideration of others. This is essentially what it means to be selfish, to think of only your own thoughts and needs, to act without any thought or consideration of others. To not care what people think of you. You matter, how you are perceived matters, matter really matters. We are all living breathing, animated matter.

Ever since the first lockdown I have attended a regular zoom group, exploring certain aspects of spiritual development. It is the only one of several that I used to attend, that I still do. Other than, of course, the ones I lead myself. Last Sunday we got into a conversation about selfishness and altruism. One friend, who spends a lot of her life giving of herself to others, said that there were some selfish aspects to the things that she does. I questioned her on this, because I don’t think that it is true. So I asked her to elaborate, to explain, what she means by selfish elements, which she did. I then asked her if she could explain how the fact that she enjoys giving of her time to others and gets a sense of well-being and freedom from what she does, how that means it is selfish. Again she explained. After listening I suggested that what she was not being selfish at all. I asked her if she did this purely for her own benefit and without any thought or consideration for others? Which of course she does not. I thus suggested that what she was doing was not in any way shape or form selfish. The conversation developed as we spoke of how we see ourselves, each other and the rest of humanity. How often, even secular folk have a “Calvinistic” view of human nature; how often do we hear folk described as selfish to the core, suggesting that there is something wrong with our humanity, that there is “something rotten in our timbers”. Such feelings cause folk to feel guilty about doing things that give them a sense of pleasure and well-being. I made the point that it is vital that we take care of such human needs, including what gives us pleasure, so that we can be of love and service to others, to offer our gifts to life. If we didn’t then someone else would have to do so and in fact if anything was selfish it would be this. It was a great conversation, as they often are. We felt good as we logged off. We had been of service to one another and we had all gained from the conversation as I am sure others will do too as we engage with them. There is nothing in any way selfish in this, just because we all gained from the conversation. We all gave of ourselves and the sum of the individual parts must have multiplied on and on into infinity and beyond. This is the strange mathematics of giving, where the commodity is actually multiplied by subtraction. Yes I know it doesn’t make common sense, but then we are dealing in uncommon sense and there isn’t enough of this in the world.

That afternoon I had another interesting conversation with another friend, affectionately known as “Aussie Steve”. He is Australian and is called Steve, hence the name. He spends a lot of his time in Israel where all his children are and some time in England, his wife is English. Sue and myself had stayed with them when we visited Israel. He had invited me there to speak at an event. What an experience, I gained so much more from the visit. I had given of myself and had gained so much in return. It wasn’t an absolutely altruistic trip, but then there was no sense of selfishness involved either.

Steve was going back to Israel the next day and wanted to talk through a few things with me. We are going to stay in zoom contact over the next few months. After we had talked about the matter, we had met to discuss we then found ourselves wandering down all kinds of other avenues. Obviously, the state that the world is in came up and people’s response to things. We talked about freedom, but we also spoke of responsibility. The measures in place to help contain Covid and the current relaxations in this country. The vaccine roll out and people’s objections to it and all kinds of things. I quoted Victor Frankl to him. I did not quite do so entirely accurately, but I did capture the essence of the following quotation.

“Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

We spoke of freedom and responsibility. How you can’t authentically have one without the other. How to truly live with freedom and responsibility for our own actions but also understand that we have a shared responsibility for the society in which we live, that we are communal creatures and that this is the essence of true religion, something that can get lost in some modern spiritual thinking. Well in truth it is one of the negative aspects that date back to the enlightenment era.

I recently came across a “Meme” on facebook depicting two single fish. One was swimming in a great ocean and the other a tiny bowl. The image was an attempt to illustrate the difference between “Spirituality” and “Religion”. The image suggested that the fish in the bowl is restricted by the confines of its environment, “religion”, where as the fish in the ocean had limitless expansion, “spirituality”. I get the critique and have sympathy with it. That said if truth be told neither image appeals to me. The fish in the ocean is swimming alone, and this can often be the problem with what passes for modern spirituality. The truth is that no one swims alone, we swim in the vast ocean of life and whatever your spiritual beliefs and practices you cannot live them alone, besides which they are too limited and limiting if they are not shared with others in the vast ocean of life. You can have free religion, which is not confined and is in fact open to new things, these come to us as we interact with other fish in the vast ocean of existence. No one is an island. Surely always wanting to swim alone is another way of limiting life and experiences. It is ok for a while, perhaps even necessary at times, but long term it is just another way of avoiding life.

Anyhow the conversation with Steve moved on Judaism, what some might see as one of the fish in a bowl and Jesus within the tradition and what we thought he saw as his purpose, his mission as. We both agreed that essentially, he was trying to bring the faith back to the people, that somehow the laws had got lost and that at the time they seemed purely focused on God and not enough on the people. The conversation then developed into a critique of this getting lost in the Christian tradition which seemed to have been more about the laws and doctrines and the structure of the tradition and not these simple teachings, yet another limiting fish bowl.

That said at its essence the Judea Christian tradition calls folk to respond to God’s love by loving their neighbour as themelves. This does not seem limiting at all, to me it is meant to be ever expanding, it just gets lost. Also of course, if we have no love for ourselves it will be very hard, if not impossible, to love our neighbours. In fact what we end up doing is putting ourselves in our own bowls. I have learnt that people do infact love others as much as they love themselves, the problem is that they so many of us don’t love who we are. If we believe that we are selfish to the core, it will be very difficult to show love to others who we see in the same way.

The essence of the Judea-Christian tradition - in fact virtually every single tradition, spiritual or not throughout human history, although perhaps with less theistic language - is perhaps most clearly stated in the following response by Jesus to the question ‘which commandment is the first of all?’ To which he condenses centuries of Jewish teaching and prophetic witness into a few, short, enduring phrases: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

Now even within my free and open tradition, the Unitarians, folk have often focused on the love we have for our neighbour, this sense of offering unconditional love. This is essential to spiritual living in community. It is the essence of my phrase “Come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.” The problem is of course that sometimes we forget to focus on the true love that we feel for ourselves. Do we see decency in ourselves? If we do not, we will never truly love our neighbour. For we will love them as we love ourselves, which will not be very loving at all.

I know I can be my harshest critic. I have been at times in recent weeks. My kryptonite, to be seen as a decent person, comes from a sense, at times, that there is something wrong with me. Something I know intellectually is untrue, but at times I still feel. I am not alone in this, I know that. As I have witnessed in conversations, I have had this week. In a strange way it keeps me connected and it keeps me grounded with the people I share my life with. That said it is so vital that we all recognise that love that is at the core of our humanity.

As William Sloane Coffin so beautifully put it in “Credo”

“What a wonderful thing it would be if once and for all we could lay to rest the notion that it is a virtue to love others and a vice to love oneself. For what is vicious is not self-love but selfishness, and selfishness is more a product of self-hate, than self-love. All forms of selfishness are finally forms of insecurity, compensations, for a lack of self-love.”

These last few weeks I have needed to care for myself. Yes, I am fulfilling my duties, not just professionally but in life in general. That said I am also taking care of my own personal needs too. It is vital I do so in order to feel love and to let others love me too. This allows me to love my neighbours as I would like to. Taking care of yourself, practising self-care is not being selfish. We need to take care of ourselves for a variety of reasons. It is also being responsible too. By the way if you don’t take care of your personal needs, it means that someone else will have to and that sounds selfish to me.

I received a wonderful gift this week. In fact I have received and accepted many all week. People have been wonderful. Thank you. On Tuesday evening my appointment was cancelled, I decided instead of carrying on working I would go home and relax. I thought I’ll leave early as I don’t want to get caught up in the traffic going to Old Trafford for the cricket. As I was driving my phone rang. I obviously didn’t answer at the time. As I pulled in home it went off again. It was a friend Helen asking if I listened to the message, it was from her mum. I listened to it. She told me she had a spare ticket to the cricket that night and would I like to meet her and go with her. Her friend was unwell, and she didn’t want to go on her own. I said yes please. So, I met her, and we went together. It was a wonderful game and just what I needed, just what the doctored order. A beautiful example of allowing life to take care of me and another, there is nothing selfish in that, in fact we both gained from going together, a Yorkshire man and a Lancastrian woman.

The mistake that we often make is that we equate self-care or self-love with selfishness. Now of course there are forms of self-love “Narcissism” that are selfish, but true self love is not selfish at all. The ancient Greeks named this Philautia, which they saw as the highest form of love. They believed that without it a person could not offer the other forms of love in a positive sense. Self-care, true self love is not selfish at all, for it is not about acting without any thought or consideration for others. It is quite the opposite actually for by doing so it will allow you to love your neighbour too, for you will love them as you love yourself.

We need to let go of the idea that loving ourselves truly as we, warts and all and beauty spots too is in any sense a selfish act. Please remember that a selfish person is interested only in themself wants everything for themself; can see nothing but themself. A selfish person does not love themself too much, but too little. You see the truth is that a truly selfish person is incapable of loving others because they are seemingly unable to love themselves.

To truly love yourself is to follow that greatest commandment, it is to acknowledge that love is at the root of all that we are. If we do not love ourselves, then we cannot love our neighbour.

Parker Palmer said that:

“Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”

Taking care of ourselves, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually is not a selfish act. In fact, I would suggest to not do so is actually more like selfishness. It is our responsibility in fact to take care of the life we have been given. Each life is unique and is there to be utilized for the purpose of all. To truly achieve this, we need to take care of ourselves and to express our joy in life. You see to be joyful, to be happy, is to express all that you are. To be all that you can be is not selfish, it is a true expression of love in all its forms.

It is what we are here for, and it inspires others to love both themselves and each other and all life that matter.

Remember you matter, you really do. Matter truly, absolutely positively, matters…

Here is a video based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Can there be a right kind of selfishness?

I recently came across the following taken from "The Fear of Freedom" by Eric Fromm...

"Selfishness and Self-love"

"Selfishness is not identical with self-love but with its very opposite. Selfishness is one kind of greediness. Like all greediness, it contains an insatiability, as a consequence of which there is never any real satisfaction. Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

Close observation shows that while the selfish person is always anxiously concerned with himself, he is never satisfied, is always restless, always driven by the fear of not getting enough, of missing something, of being deprived of something. He is filled with burning envy of anyone who might have more.

If we observe closer still, especially the unconscious dynamics, we find that this type of person is basically not fond of himself, but deeply dislikes himself.

Selfishness is rooted in this very lack of fondness for oneself. The person who is not fond of himself, who does not approve of himself, is in constant anxiety concerning his own self. He has not the inner security which can exist only on the basis of genuine fondness and affirmation. He must be concerned about himself, greedy to get everything for himself, since basically he lacks security and satisfaction.

The same holds true with the so-called narcissistic person, who is not so much concerned with getting things for himself as with admiring himself. While on the surface it seems that these persons are very much in love with themselves, they are actually not fond of themselves, and their narcissism - like selfishness - is an overcompensation for the basic lack of self-love."

It got me thinking about selfishness and self love. I have heard it said that you have to love yourself and that this is a right kind of selfishness. But is it? Is self love, selfishness as all?

"Can there ever be a right kind of selfishness?...Some people tell me so...As is often the case the first place I turned to is that "Holy Fool" Nasruddin...This tale spoke to me...

Nasruddin was once engaged in a spiritual conversation with a monk. The monk told Nasrduddin:

“I have achieved an incredible level of dis-attachment from myself—so much so that I only think of others, and never of myself.”

Now Nasruddin paused for a while and then he replied:

“Well, I have reached a more advanced state than that.”

The Monk a little surprised by the Holy Fools response asked:

“How so?”

To which Nasruddin answered:

“I am so objective that I can actually look at another person as if he were me, and by doing so, I can think of myself!“

An interesting take on the “Golden Rule”, maybe? Maybe not?

Now is Nasruddin engaging in Narcissim, in self-absorption, self-obsession here? Is it all about him? Is he displaying selfishness? Or is he unearthing an interesting truth, something that we can often miss?

When you hear the word “Selfish”, what thoughts does it conjure up in your mind?

Can there ever be a right kind of selfishness?

Generally it breeds only negative images. We are told that we should not be selfish; that it is selfishness and self-absorption that is at the root of all of society’s ills; that we need to learn to give to life and that in doing so, we all benefit. When we hear someone described as being selfish we picture only negative connotations. Selfishness is usually considered the worst kind of character flaw that we could ever suffer from.

It’s a powerful word to use to describe another. Think about the last time you were in an argument. Think about the last time you called a person “selfish”, how did they respond?

“Selfish”, it is a very powerful word indeed. A word we use often. Do we always use it appropriately?

Now before exploring whether there can ever be a right kind of selfishness I think we need to first of all understand what it means to be selfish.

Well my dictionary defines it as being “devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one’s own interests, benefits, etc…, regardless of others. It is “characterised by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself, to be consumed by selfish motives” It’s synonyms are as follows “ self-interested, self-seeking, egoistic; illiberal, parsimonious, stingy.”

I would also add to be selfish is to be both “greedy” and “narcissistic”

None of these sound like great qualities and not something the spiritually inclined amongst us ought be aspiring to, you would think. Well maybe, maybe not?

But is selfishness always wrong? Can there be a right kind of selfishness?

It is said that before you can give to others you need to take care of yourself. If you give too much from your cup, your well will soon become dry and you will be unable to help others. It is said that you’ve got to look after yourself first, before you can help others; it is said that there is a right kind of selfishness and that we all need it.

The aeroplane analogy is often used, which goes something like the following. If you are in an aeroplane and it gets into distress, so much so that the cabin becomes de-compressed, leading to the oxygen masks having to be deployed, before you can help anyone else you must first secure your own oxygen mask.

But is this selfishness? Is taking care of yourself, practising self-care being selfish? I’m not convinced that this is true selfishness. Of course we need to take care of ourselves if we are to be of use to anyone or anything, but is that acting selfishly? Not as I understand it. Actually I believe that that if you do not take care of yourself you are actually being selfish. Why? Well because if we do not take care of our basic human needs, it means we end up depending on others to do so for us. Now that sounds selfish to me.

I think the mistake that we often make is that we equate self-care or self-love with selfishness. Now of course there are forms of self-love “Narcissism” that are selfish, but true self love is not selfish at all. The ancient Greeks named this Philautia, which they saw as the highest form of love. They believed that without it a person could not offer the other forms of love in a positive sense.

Self-care and or self-love is not a right kind of selfishness, because it is not selfishness at all.

Does this mean that there can’t be “A right kind of selfishness” though?

What about greed itself, is greed bad? Can greed be good? Can it be the right kind of selfishness?

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of humankind and greed, you mark my words, will … save …”

These words were uttered by Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglass in the 1987 film Wall Street. The speech has often been shortened to “greed is good,” And became a philosophy for many during the 1980’s and beyond.

Is Greed good? Can greed ever be good? Well certainly Erich Fromm did not think so. Neither do the great faith traditions either. Jesus certainly saw it as an obstacle to the spiritual life. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now I don’t believe he was decrying wealth per say, more the worship of love or money, or to put it another way “Greed”, which is certainly a powerful force and master that gets in the way of one serving God.

From a Buddhist perspective “Greed” can be understood as “Desire”, perhaps the most intense form of desire. The Buddha saw desire as the root of all suffering. Judaism points to something similar. Rabbinic literature warns against the dangers of the “Yetzer ha-Ra.” This is translated as evil inclination or selfish desire or sometimes just simply desire. Illustrated in the story of Adam and Eve in which they eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, resulting in the fall from innocence and alienation from God. Lao Tzu said "Manifest plainess, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Yet there is a philosophy, perhaps even a spirituality behind “greed is good”. Some see greed as a creative force and not a destructive one. This is probably best articulated in the writing of philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand. Her work had a powerful influence over many in positions of power and came to prominence during the last American presidential elections. I remember a year or so back the Rev Bill Darlison struggling with one of her novels. He had decided he wanted to explore it in worship and was finding it hard work. I have not read anything of her work but I recently heard it described as “morally repugnant and literally weak and yet somehow deeply compelling”. I suspect that it taps into that reptilian mind in all of us. You see greed is a powerful force, it’s kind of sexy in so many ways. Greed is fuelled by “Eros.”

Eros, a different kind of love to Philautia and Agape. It is the force that drives creativity as well as desire and greed and even the will to live itself. Eros often gets a bad name it does not always deserve. The truth is that we need Eros. We need this creative force to continue creating life. We need to be careful not to cage this force. We need it just as much as we need the other forms of love. The problems arise when these forces develop beyond their proper proportions.

That said I do not believe that "Greed is good", it can easily become violent, destructive and all consuming. We only need look at most of the troubles of our world to see the horrors of greed. The recent financial crises are a direct result of it as are most of the troubles caused by expansionism. That said we need to be careful not to cage those aspects of life that lead to that glorious creative force, that can grow from within us. Without it there would be no life.

The other problem with greed and excessive individualism for that matter is that it leads to separation. In many ways it leads to us failing to see ourselves in the eyes of our brothers and sisters.

This brings me back to thoughts around “The Golden Rule”, the core principle of all good religion and philosophy. It is for me the core of everything and the true expression of God manifesting in human life, for God is love.

As I have said many times before I believe that we all live by the golden rule, we do in fact love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The problem being that often we do not truly recognise the love we are created from. We can feel shame about loving ourselves. We somehow see this as being selfish, when that is the last thing that it is. In fact philautia, self-love, is essential to truly loving our neighbours as the very same children of love, children of God that we ourselves are. By failing to love ourselves we are actually separating ourselves from the rest of the creative life. We need to respect and celebrate our own beautiful uniqueness in order to recognise this in others.

We need to let go of the idea that loving ourselves truly as we, warts and all and beauty spots too is in any sense a selfish act. Please remember that a selfish person is interested only in himself wants everything for herself; can see nothing but her or himself. A selfish person does not love herself too much, but too little. You see the truth is that a truly selfish person is incapable of loving others because they are seemingly unable to love themselves.

To truly love yourself is to follow that greatest commandment, it is to acknowledge that love is at the root of all that we are. If we do not love ourselves, then we cannot love our neighbour.

Parker Palmer said that:

“Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”

Taking care of ourselves, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually is not a selfish act. In fact I would suggest to not do so is actually more like selfishness as we usually understand it. It is our responsibility in fact to take care of the life we have been given. Each life is unique and is there to be used for the purpose of all. To truly achieve this we need to take care of ourselves and to express our joy in life. You see to be joyful, to be happy, is to express all that you are; to be all that you can be is neither selfish or greedy, it is a true expression of love in all its forms.

It is what we are here for and it inspires others to love both themselves and each other.

I’m going to end with this wonderful little quote I recently came across by Gretchin Rubin from “The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, read Aristotle, and generally Have More Fun”

“The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly light-hearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.”

Enjoy all that is life, it is the least selfish thing you could ever do.