Selfless and selfish

I’m rather service oriented in my day to day: I help others to accomplish things, repair things, make things work that don’t wanna, whatever.  In my private world, theres a lot of that too, but I also try to produce things, tangible things, that do stuff.  Even if that ‘thing’ is just a silly book about flying RC aircraft in unusual ways.  A minor escape from the reality of the day to day.   (and that is truly where the stories come from.  My imagination taking me somewhere ‘not here’ for a brief spell, just to relax, and maybe see potentials not obvious to everyday Joe.)

I know its not a linear ruler, but there is a grey area between selfless and selfish.  That area is where I try to keep myself.   You have to take care of #1 or #1 can’t take care of #3-12.   So there must be a certain amount of selfishness involved in living a life.

The real definition of Selfish in my minds eye is the sloth.  The one that has no regulator on Impulse control, the one that seeks every pleasure, avoiding the pains at all costs.   Even though that sort of lifestyle tends to ‘turn and bite’ later, those that choose it are still selfish in their approach to others; “What do you give me?”    I see it everyday with BadCuz and his GF.   Its not ‘what can I do for others today that will improve things?’, its ‘what can I get to make my misery a little less biting?’    That path leads to addiction and ethical failings every time.  (Big broad brush strokes here,,, bear with me.)

The Selfless:  there is also the person so giving that in the end, they are empty shells of themselves, disillusioned with humanity as a whole.   THAT is where I sometimes feel I am being pulled to, Like traveling through space and feeling the gravitational well of a black hole.   It’s not going to pull me in if I correct course soon enough, but given enough time, acceleration increases and the course shifts just enough to become dangerous.

I have my days where that disillusionment is bordering on a protective shell built around me.    Its the very reason I try to avoid such as Bad Cuz: the leeches of the world sucking value from everything they can grasp to one end.

Its not what you get, its what you give.

That lesson was driven home while on tour.   One could look at the money the bands were making and think “damn, they’re rich”,   but I saw it the other way.  The ones that were making bank, got up on that stage everynight and gave the audience EVERYTHING THEY HAD.   Gerard from My Chem, had several nights where he literally had to be carried off that stage to the bus:  depleted, wrung out, spent.   And the return was an audience that LOVED him, his music, his bandmates, the show, the ideas, the emotions, and that energy was sent back three-fold.  If it hadn’t been, I don’t think Gerard could have done that show every night, 6 nights a week, for months on end.

He was selfless in his art.  

But there was a recipricocity: Selfless, in a way, is Selfish.   There is no ledger keeping track, it rarely balances cleanly, and in the end, when we are asked “what did you do?” will your answer be, ‘I gave what I could and took all as returned’, or “I took everything they gave,,,,”?

I get on this little soapbox every day (or nearly) and try to give a little something.  Some days, what I send you, my readers, is shallow, near empty, and for that, I do apologize.  Not an excuse, but there are days where I gave more elsewhere, and the banks are depleted or near so.

What do I get in return?   a sounding board, if I actually listen (and I do slip) a venue to vent off the disillusionment the vampires of the world create.  and a platform for my original intent of teaching something, anything.   Not always used as such, but I do keep it alive by inputs.  

And maybe in some way, I DO teach people something.   Like maybe ‘I did it this way: do NOT reccomended’.   A negative can be a positive if applied correctly.

We’re only human.  Tossed into life without a manual of operations in a machine so complex that modern medicine is still in “practice” phase.   And thats just the vehicle to travel the world.  The interactions are where the complexity truly rides.   “people are strange, when you’re a stranger,,,”

My biggest fault in life is not knowing I am right, it’s becoming CONVINCED I am right.   (about anything)     There is a big distinction written in that statement.   After 58 revs around this sun, I still run abutt of that ‘conviction’ and it bites me, Every, Single. Time.  You’d figure I’d learn to keep the cards closer by now, huh?    With all of my seeking “truth”, one would think I had figured out there is no such animal.  Not really: my truths may mirror yours, but there are flaws in the mirror between us, and your truth won’t mesh completely with mine.

Thats why we have incidents like planes crashing into towers, or wars that get started on misinformation, or ideologies that demand subjection or destruction of non-believers.    I see mirrors of Islam in Zionic thought, and yet the two have been and will be at each others throats, forever.   I see twisting of teachings in the Christian religions that accomplish the same end.  

Its a bloody messy world we reside in, and there are days where I get convinced that this is truly hell.  That we are here to learn how to be angelic with all the poison to contend with against that goal.  

Theres that “convinced” thing again.    I don’t know.  I don’t know a damned thing about life: I’m making this shit up as I go along, just like the rest of us.   Just like I told Burnout not long back “don’t ask me for relationship advice, I ain’t ever had a good one, long enough, to know what makes them work.”

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There is the mirror,

And then there is the window right next to it.   Me thinks I need to turn my attention away from one towards the other for a spell.

More tomorrow, Love y’all