Kub933's Journal

Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your reply :

Yes indeed this is exactly what happened and furthermore as you said :

So the social/moral conditioning cannot provide safety either, basically there is no safety where ‘I’ am in existence.

And yes whilst pure intent is active there is safety but as long as ‘I’ am in existence there is always a possibility of something happening. Those situations which happened they are still quite luke warm events, for example in a life or death situation the full extent of ‘my’ survival passions could be activated, such as the example Richard gave of people stampeding others to death during a fire. And I know that no matter how diminished ‘I’ may be, the potential for a full blown passionate response is always there, this ‘I’ cannot do away with. I think this is why it took so long for me to accept and see situation 1 and 2 clearly and sincerely, that I was shocked that these things still happen, and if those smaller things can happen then the worst things can happen too, it would just take the correct situation to trigger.

So with regards to proceeding towards actual freedom now, it is just this last question of how on earth to trigger altruism, I say question but it’s not that I am lacking the intellectual understanding, more like how to actually have it happen. Me and Sonya were watching a zombie movie (28 weeks later) yesterday and it actually gave a very good example of altruism, I mentioned this to Sonya during one of the scenes.

Because in the movie there is (of course) a zombie outbreak which is tearing through what is left of the population, there is a boy and a girl that are known to have potential immunity to the zombie virus. During all the commotion a soldier and a medic abandon their posts and set off on a mission to ensure that the boy and girl survive and make it out.

But the point is that both the solider and medic having learned “what is at stake” not only abandoned their prior responsibilities/obligations but furthermore they automatically/thoughtlessly/instinctually set off on a mission that would likely end in their death (which it does for them both), and they did so without any deliberation. As the medic said in one of the scenes “their lives are way more important than mine”.

That it was not a question to be deliberated or weighted up, it was “seeing the stakes” and then an automatic readiness to sacrifice their life. There was simply no consideration for ‘my’ survival when the survival of the species was at stake. So the altruism which they displayed it was out of their hands, it was activated by the situation. Not to say that I am now waiting for a zombie apocalypse :laughing:

Now the other thing is that once this altruism was activated it allowed for them to act in a way that would be seen as heroic, something that sometime down the line could be emulated by others in the way of morality.

That ‘I’ could act in a heroic way in order to claim ‘my’ rewards, and yet when altruism is activated it has nothing to do with this. Whatever heroic behaviour happens because of the complete lack of consideration for ‘my’ survival when the survival of the species is at stake.

Is this what morality is at core? A bastardisation of what happens when altruism is activated? That ‘I’ can “put the other before myself” in order to claim ‘my’ rewards? Whereas when altruism is activated ‘I’ sacrifice ‘myself’ for the survival of the species without any other consideration.

The other thing is that altruism is clearly not an intelligent response, it is an instinctive response. Which is also why it does not exist in actuality, which is good as there are many silly reasons one could instinctively sacrifice oneself for - I remember reading a story of a man jumping into a hot spring after his dog for example. Now sacrificing ‘myself’ for the benefit of this body, that body and everybody is certainly sensible.

But this is all good because altruism is essentially something that is already a part of ‘my’ repertoire, furthermore it is activated instinctively by the situation and not deliberated about by ‘me’, also once activated it causes a behaviour which is out of ‘my’ hands and whatever heroic qualities that are displayed are part and parcel of sacrificing ‘myself’ for the greater thing which is at stake.

So it’s like the situation is already set up for all that needs to happen, to happen. Essentially the universe has set it up so that ‘I’ can disappear, and any ‘I’ can disappear.

Oh wow and something else which I had not seen this clearly before, that altruism is literally the flip side of selfism. Basically there is the drive for the survival and continuation of the species and normally this takes the form of selfism - the survival of the individual. Altruism is based in the same core drive which fuels selfism (which is the very drive for the survival and continuation of the species), it is just that with the survival of the species at stake the survival of the individual is no longer of concern.

And now the other important question - Am ‘I’ as ‘self’ the very mechanism of selfism in operation? That it is ‘my’ survival that takes precedence over all else? Now ‘I’ may have expanded ‘myself’ into ‘humanity’ but it is the same drive for the survival of ‘me’ at all cost?