John Noble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackofallgeeks) wrote2004-05-12 01:55 am
jackofallgeeks) wrote2004-05-12 01:55 am
Life, Love, and Toothpicks...
So I was thinking a while ago about what it is I look for in a Girl... Mike and I spoke for a bit about it today... a girl, he said, needs to be a friend, a room mate, and a lover. A tall order, he said. I think I would tend to agree with him, on both counts (what we want a girl to be, and that it's a lot to ask).
I've said it enough before, and I think I'll say it again, as it's what I was thinking before I spoke with Mike. I need a girl who I can Love. A girl who will be an outlet for my affection. I feel as though I'm physically bursting with affection, but it isn't appropriate to express it, fully, to anyone... I need someone who I don't need to hold back with, I think. Maybe that's even more to ask than Mike's request.
My friend Nifer once said that people are basically selfish, and that everything someone does boils down to a selfish desire. She even reduced a will to do what's Right as a selfish desire, and in the face of that sort of logic there's very little one can argue. still, I think I am a very selfish person. It haunts me. Even my love is a selfish love; I must needs be affectionate, and those I love are an outlet for my affection.
There has been a definition for Love that I've encountered a number of times, and which I hold rather highly. That is, Love is not an emotion or a state of mind, but an act of the will. A conscious action, something you choose to do, not something you happen to feel or tend to think. The trouble is that the willing is willing another's good before your own; that you would have another be happy, even if it means suffering for you. In a few cases, I might be able to claim something close to this definition. I don't know if I'm really capable of this sort of Love. I fear that, whoever She is, I won't be able to Love her enough as to have Her leave me, if need be.
I've said it enough before, and I think I'll say it again, as it's what I was thinking before I spoke with Mike. I need a girl who I can Love. A girl who will be an outlet for my affection. I feel as though I'm physically bursting with affection, but it isn't appropriate to express it, fully, to anyone... I need someone who I don't need to hold back with, I think. Maybe that's even more to ask than Mike's request.
My friend Nifer once said that people are basically selfish, and that everything someone does boils down to a selfish desire. She even reduced a will to do what's Right as a selfish desire, and in the face of that sort of logic there's very little one can argue. still, I think I am a very selfish person. It haunts me. Even my love is a selfish love; I must needs be affectionate, and those I love are an outlet for my affection.
There has been a definition for Love that I've encountered a number of times, and which I hold rather highly. That is, Love is not an emotion or a state of mind, but an act of the will. A conscious action, something you choose to do, not something you happen to feel or tend to think. The trouble is that the willing is willing another's good before your own; that you would have another be happy, even if it means suffering for you. In a few cases, I might be able to claim something close to this definition. I don't know if I'm really capable of this sort of Love. I fear that, whoever She is, I won't be able to Love her enough as to have Her leave me, if need be.
Selfishness
But the selfishness argument. You're right, you can't argue against the "everyone does everything to satisfy some personal desire" argument. This is a sign that it is a bad argument, not a good one.
Think about it. Sometimes, when you do something, there is a desire you actually feel present. But of course, there are times that we do things when we certainly don't feel like we want to do them - in fact, we think they seem pretty onerous. "Aha!" says the desire person, "you do desire to do it, you just don't realize you do!" You have what Hume (who started this all) called a 'calm passion.'
The problem with this is - how do you know you have the desire? What's the evidence? You did the act. The reason you can't argue against this is that it's entirely circular. The only reason that the desire-theorist gets to count the cases where you don't feel a desire as evidence for her theory is because she's assuming her own theory.
While you're looking for Love, you might take up Thomas Nagel's The Possibility of Altruism as some light reading. :)
Re: Selfishness