On Selflessness

Because Bale B-Movie Morality~ (Excerpted from Equilibrium, 2002)

There is no self-deprecating humour readily conceivable for a sufficiently humble introduction of this topic.  It must-needs be approached with the same sobriety by which it is practiced.  Of the many frames of approach⁠—as the question, as the problem, or as the object⁠—none seem as appropriate as an approach from the self.

Story time!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a moron decided to become involved in student politics.  From the beginning, this moron argued that they were only trying to get the job done.  The moron reasoned that not enough decent people had the stamina to persistently engage in decision-making with what the moron eventually identified as bad faith actors.  "You know the decisions that they'll make when you're not there," the moron insisted.  People wondered why the moron endured; the moron's supervisor even wondered out loud whether it was a waste of time altogether.  Then, the moron blogged about it:

There's a rizomata panton irony (or paradox) to be found within the reality that the most idealized moral telos, selflessness, is also the least practiced and/or understood.  Its value as a moral object transcends time, space, culture, and even morality; Nazis could be selfless.  Within a morally relative universe, something about selflessness elevates it into a class of its own in significance and consequence.

And yet, basically no one is actually selfless, at least, no one still with us.  Of course, it's impossible to be and persist selflessly.  A baseline of biopsychological being is necessary to bide.

What does it mean to nullify the self as much as one can abide?  Well, most consequentially for one's humanity and for traditional conceptions of human flourishing, without the self, there is no intimacy, or at least authentic intimacy.  Long-term, sustainable intimacy relies upon some form of co-dependency.  A great friend of mine once argued at length that sustainable intimacy or healthy relationships more broadly require that intimate partners fill voids in each other's lives.  The trick with selflessness is there is no one void to be filled in one's being or self.  Conceptually, it's all void—or all filled; the consequence is the same.  A selfless individual has denied even the possibility of a void, regardless of its potential verity.

Naturally, selflessness leaves little room for ego as its traditionally understood.  Just as the self cannot be nullified to void, ego will always linger as long as we remain sapient and finite.  The ego can be denied, but never truly destroyed.  A similar line of reasoning likely predisposed Eckhart Tolle to conclude that "to be wrong is to die." (The Power of Now, 1997)

Up until this point in my reasoning, selflessness may appear to be infallible as a moral means and object, but in many ways, to pursue selflessness to its extremity is also to dehumanize oneself, depending how one construes of "humanity."

What might not have been obvious is that selflessness is also a nullification or at least complete denial of sexuality, excepting the most base and sentient gratifications.  A selfless person, in forgoing intimacy, inevitably encounters the truth of humanity that intimacy and sexuality intersect so wholistically and exhaustively that it's impossible to embody or reify one without the other, unless one is biologically predisposed to extreme asexuality.  "Volcel" individuals could be among the most selfless, but if we presuppose intimacy and sexuality as constitutive of our humanity, then volcel individuals could also be classed among the most inhumane.

And as you might have guessed by now, embodied selflessness necessitates an inevitable denial of emotion.  The emotive would inevitably be repressed by the drive to deny the self any validation.  As alluded by the preambulatory video, the value of selflessness to the degree and intensity that it can be practiced by human beings depends on the fact of choice.  In many ways, one could construe embodied selflessness as one of the ultimate sacrifices that an individual can make for others, exemplifying one of the most obvious and explicit cases of a human sacrificing their humanity for others' humanity.

It's important to remember that to be anything other than selfless is a tremendous gift and privilege.  I've written at length about how the capacity to sacrifice is a privilege; to be selfless is to give up even that capacity.  You can only sacrifice what you have.

So then why might it be worth considering selflessness regardless?  Succinctly, selfishness won't save us.  There's other rabbit holes in this blog to wander into if you'd appreciate an elaboration on that particular point.  If "some very few of us" don't attempt to embody selflessness, I reckon we're on a one way train to hell.

So, for the sake of praxis, I created a useful check list for those go-getters.

Selflessness Checklist

1. Are you dead?
2. If you happen to have a phallus, have you endured blue balls deliberately more than once to the degree that you could no longer stand erect?
3. Do you believe that intimacy is an unnecessary part of your being?
4. Were you never a human baby?
5. Have you yet to consider your money your money?
6. Does your parental figure complain every major visit that you're not being selfish enough?
7. Do you routinely lie by omission about your self, anticipating that these details might provoke self-hatred among others?
8. Do you regularly feign emotion?

If you answered in the affirmative to any and all of the above, then you might be or have been selfless, but probably not.  Don't worry; people attempting this perfect self-destruction can also be proficient thespians.