Everything I do, I do it for…ME

One of my favourite essays is “What is Man” by Mark Twain. He wrote this over a long period of time, and finally published it anonymously in 1906, so afraid was he of the reception it would receive. The primary tenent of the essay is that Man is a machine, with no original thought, no real free will, and that all his actions are driven solely to please himself. I don’t agree with all his conclusions, but the assertion that everything people do is for their own self interest and that there is no such thing as altruism rings absolutely true.

There is no selfless act, such a thing does not exist. Everything we do is to please ourselves. Let someone else eat that last piece of decadent cake? If I hadn’t, my mind wouldn’t have let me rest easy. Giving up the cake was excrutiating for a glutton like me, but the alternative was worse. We always pick the option that will cause us the least amount of pain and greatest amount of mental comfort. No such thing as a selfless act, no such thing as charity.

The word charity is rather repugnant to me, with all the implications it carries of an holier than thou spirit. My mother used to say that one should never talk about the helping hand you provide to someone else, your left hand musn’t know what the right does. Otherwise what you do isn’t to help someone else, it is to garner praise. So ingrained is this sentiment in me, that I cringe when I see public displays of charity, and find myself sitting in judgement of such people.

But is this judgement justified in any way? Forget about the “one should not judge others” piece of it, of course we judge our fellow man and usually find them wanting. That’s human nature and very few are able to rise above. Is judgement in this case justified? After all, there is no such thing as a selfless act. Everything we do is to please ourselves. So how then am I or my mother with our “don’t let the left hand know what the right does” philisophy any different from the “call the press and hold a major event to show the world how much I help” people? We are all pleasing ourselves. We are all seeking approval, either our own or someone else’s. We all crave that approval. So is my feeling superior in any way justified? I don’t think it is at all.

We all seek approval for every single thing we do. Does that reduce the outcome of deed in any way? In my mid-40s, I’ve finally realised it doesn’t in the slightest. Gia was wrapping gifts for the little kids across the street. I asked her whether she wanted to be Secret Santa, or take credit for the gifts and write her name on them. She opted to be Secret Santa, thought it would be more thrilling for the kids. For her friends though, she wanted to take all the credit for choosing gifts they would love. My first instinct was to praise her for not wanting credit and choosing to play Secret Santa, but was it really a selfless act? Not at all. Their approval of her gifting abilities didn’t really matter to her, her friends’ approval mattered a great deal. Either way, the end result was the same – the children got the gifts. Was either way better than the other? Mark Twain would agree that it wasn’t.