Tag: 84thlife

  • Question – Living Selflessly

    84thlife replied to your post: 84thlife replied to your post: 84thlife replied to…

    And FWIW, I really do hope you find examples of people, personally in life or famous, whoever, who you do think do selfless things, even if just occasionally. I’m sure there are some out there. Mahatma Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Someone else?

    I guess the truth of it all is simply that I won’t see the world any differently as long as I see these shortcomings in myself. I see this lack of selflessness in my own character, hence I find it difficult to see anyone else’s motivation any differently. I guess the desire for divine reward is the only admirable selfishness of the lot, and it’s entirely understandable. Perhaps I’ll have a life experience that will convince me otherwise, but until then, I am cynically jaded, am I not? 🙂

    Edit: I don’t have much respect for Mahatma Gandhi. I think he was elevated in status more than he deserved, similar to Nelson Mandela. And I suspect that this would sound like blasphemy to those that love and admire these people, but society tends to overstate the virtues of people that simply step up and take a lead in a vacuum of principled behaviour. So it’s easy to understand why many would admire them. :/ Sorry, my jadedness knows no bounds this morning. 🙁

  • Question – Living Selflessly

    84thlife replied to your post: The more I engage with others, the clearer becomes…

    I really disagree where you said a selfless life is impossible and altruism is a lie; all people have bouts of selfishness from time to time but that doesn’t mean they don’t have bouts of selflessness, too. I say we agree to disagree. 🙂

    I know where you’re coming from with this, but perhaps my jadedness makes me see things differently. To me, we do things for either one of the following key reasons:

    1. We desire appreciation
    2. We desire affirmation
    3. We desire inclusion
    4. We desire admiration
    5. We desire respect
    6. We desire divine reward

    There’s probably one or two more reasons that motivate people to do things for seemingly selfless reasons, but that’s all that comes to mind right now. This is what I was referring to in my original post about some of the motivations being honourable, commendable or noble,  because there’s always an expectation of something in return, even if that something is not materialistic or socially quantifiable in this lifetime. Point 6 above is probably the most noble of them all because it seeks recognition from other than man. But it still indicates a desire for personal gain of some sort.

    If I haven’t convinced you yet, then I’m happy to agree to disagree. 🙂

  • To Blog, or Reblog?

    cynicallyjaded:

    Seriously considering becoming a re-blogger. No one appreciates original material any longer. People mostly like things only if they see other people liking things, and the number of people that like originality rather than fads are few and far between.

    I agree with all the comments, and I appreciate the compliments, but I guess deep down inside, every single one of us has a hint of attention-whoring that we can’t always dismiss, right? Seriously though, like someone once told me something along the lines of ‘words flow easier if there are hearts that are willingly receiving them’, posting on Tumblr, no matter how sincerely introspective, there is an expectation of either acknowledgement, or engagement.

    What’s most disconcerting is finding that when I re-blog something that is totally inane and it gets dozens of notes, I immediately wonder if I’m just annoying people with my endless rants and rambles about issues that most hardly appear to relate to. Which leads me to question whether I should be posting these thoughts here, or would it be more appropriate to establish a private blog or diary to store them?

    I’ve also often toyed with the idea of creating an email account for my daughters, and just emailing all these thoughts to them at random. Like little notes about what to look out for in life in case I’m not around to annoy them with fatherly advice. When they eventually reach the age of 16 or so, I would give them the details to access their respective email accounts as a gift to help them step into the adult world that awaits them.

    I’m rambling again. I guess the gist of it all is simply this. I tend to engage often with the bloggers that I follow on Tumblr, and I’m still naive enough to believe that I should expect the same in return. But when it doesn’t happen, I wonder if I’m just an annoyance factor that they’re tolerating for follower counts, or should I really stop behaving like a troll and just get the message that they’re not interested in engaging.

    Either way, it sucks. Needing, being needed, being needy…it all smacks of desperation that everyone feels but no one is willing to own up to. So I guess it’s official then. I’m a Tumblr-whore that has just come out of the closet.