Vineeto: There might be something as “the perfect opportunity” for altruism to come to the fore just as in the real world a child would be in danger of drowning first for someone to have the impulse to altruistically step in. But then there is already so much misery and mischief happening to provide enough reason to make “all the difference for the world” (link) by ‘self’-immolating. Only you can know if/when, in whatever form, you are preventing such opportunity to arise or not.
Kuba: Hmm ok thank you, I am particularly fascinated by what you wrote that ‘I’ am preventing such an opportunity to arise. Whereas before ‘I’ would see it as something that ‘I’ have to generate. But indeed it does seem like if anything ‘I’ am preventing altruism from being activated, as you said there is already enough reasons all around. This does make sense because selfism will be in place all the way until altruism is activated. So ‘I’ will seek to live another day until ‘I’ don’t, that is the end.
Certainly being stuck in a maze of ticking off imaginary checkboxes would be a good distraction, and seeking that ‘final plateau’ for ‘me’ is also in the exact opposite direction of allowing altruism to be activated.
Hehe so I see it somewhat now that at the end of the day all ‘I’ can do is put it off a little more. ‘I’ am putting off the enormity of the seeing, of what role ‘I’ play in this mess and the only way of rectifying it. (link)
Hi Kuba,
What you can do is turning your attention in a slightly different direction.
RICHARD: If the impact of pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) be not sufficiently enticing – an altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto is not, of course, only for the benefit of other bodies – then maybe a goodly dose of back-pressure may provide the requisite incentive.
I am, of course, referring to watching the evening news (or even soap-operas for that matter) and seeing – actually seeing – the human condition stripped-naked as it parades itself across the screen for those with the eyes to see … and thus knowing that, essentially, there too goes oneself, no matter how diminished.
I do know that it worked well for the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago when, being only human, the impulsion (being pulled from ahead) would, on occasion, lessen in its intensity and the propulsion (being pushed from behind) was most certainly helpful in vivifying a flagging intent to enable that which the PCE so magically evinced to occur 24/7.
So … what is it that permits one to not proceed? (Richard, AF List, Alan-b, 27 Apr 2005).
It also worked well for this identity –
‘Vineeto’: [Richard]: ‘When it is understood that the one is the epitome of the many and that ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’. (link) (…) What does it mean, when you say ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’? (…)
Last night serendipity provided the answer to my question to you, which had been going on in my head since I wrote. The experiential answer to ‘I am many and many is me’ presented itself in the form a TV program on International Humanitarian Aid Organizations and their role and accountability. For one and a half hours there was ample footage presented on human suffering and devastation in war, famine, genocide and racial ‘cleansing’ on one side and the helpless, well-intentioned, yet almost useless effort of people in the aid organizations on the other side.
Richard: Basically, most people mean well … it is just that, for all their best intentions, they are hog-tied. No one is to blame.
‘Vineeto’: The presentation was enough to make it utterly and unquestionably clear to me that there is no difference between me and the hundreds of thousands who have suffered and died and those who have, without success or effective change, tried to help – for ‘umpteen hundreds of thousands of years’. On an overwhelming instinctual level ‘I’ am ‘them’ and ‘I’ have had no solution and never will have a solution.
Richard: There is no cure to be found in the ‘real world’ … only never-ending ‘band-aid’ solutions.
‘Vineeto’: The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice. (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 30 Sep 1999)
Perhaps you can give yourself permission to allow yourself to feel about what your fellow human beings experience, whilst knowing that compassion can never provide the solution. You already know the solution – nothing less than giving up all of ‘you’ will make “all the difference for the world”. (link).
Don’t you find it somewhat ironic that those who are affectively eager to try to help don’t know how to, and those who know what to do are hesitant?
Cheers Vineeto