DMB Digest: Once a jerk, always a jerk.
How selfish is too selfish?
How selfish is too selfish? You know, as a parent, when should I be worried about raising self-absorbed, teenage monsters? And how much is just par for the course? I ask this as a confessed, recovering selfish jerk myself.
Once a jerk, always a jerk. I own that. To be honest, I have a hard time not suspecting ulterior motives of anyone who acts as if they genuinely care for the wellbeing and benefit of someone else. I often feel like a phony when I do my best to emulate what I believe to be acceptable standards of sympathy and concern when people share difficult struggles or events with me. Inside, I’m always asking myself if I really care. Is my concern genuine? Or am I just making it up to fit in? Because it is one of the basic requirements for human relationship?
About that time, I think to myself, “See, this is why it would be so much easier to just live in a hut on the beach and write books.” It has never felt natural for me to care about others. I suspect it never will.
But then this deep, nagging feeling starts to eat away at me. I believe I have value and purpose. I believe these things have nothing to do with my “behavior scorecard” or however you want to think of your karma or deeds or the eternal scales of justice. So it only makes logical sense that everyone else has this same level of value and quality of purpose that I innately feel about myself. Hmmm.
That leaves me with a choice. Either I determine to Furiosa-Mad-Max-style scrape and scrap for my share of this value and purpose…or I learn to offer it to others, in a hope they return the favor, whether it feels natural or not. Spiral of taking. Or spiral of giving. Those are really the only two choices we face.
Deep down, something in me knows I could never be fully human living alone in a hut on the beach…even though I’m tempted by the thought all the time. So I do my best to relate to others and try to care about their struggles, even all the ones that seem stupid to me. Even the ones that don’t impact me on the surface, won’t effect how much I enjoy my tacos for dinner, or how well I sleep later that night.
This brings me full circle back to my two teenage boys. They’re selfish monsters. Mother’s day came and went with nothing more than a couple of grunts and a box of chocolates (that I gave them to give to their mother). At the same time, they’re teenage boys. I’m a fifty-year-old boy, and I still regularly forget the birthdays of those closest to me. Not that I’m trying to hurt them. I’m not sure I would remember my own birthday if I didn’t have any relationships with anyone to remind me.
I guess through all of this I’m asking, when you are self-centered, like I am, how can you deduce what’s normal and what’s anomalous when it comes to selfishness in others? Perhaps it doesn’t really matter. There may not be much more I can do to generate selflessness in my children’s hearts other than what I’m already doing, which basically amounts to doing my best to model an unnatural, countercultural priority placed on the well being of others, especially when I’d just as soon sail away on a boat and write about how stupid people are.
From the Desk of DMB
I’m past the halfway point of the project I’m currently working on. Last week was a slog. I’m sure I’ll be cutting out a good chunk of the first draft when I come back to it. But the important thing was to keep going. Just keep writing until I found my way back on the rails. That happened this week. After a couple of squishy scenes that seemed to wander around looking for purpose, I finally hatched a couple of real gems. These were the kind of moments that, as the author, I look back and wonder where the heck they came from. They contained real wisdom that seemed far beyond my grasp. That’s the reward I write for. It’s first and foremost a journey of self-discovery. I learn things. Truths about life and the world. My secondary purpose is to try to package these gems into something entertaining and insightful for others. It’s yet to be seen if that will come together with this project. But I’m enjoying the process so far.
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