Laura, I think you are wrong about this.  Everyone is selfish.
Everything we do is really in one way or another for ourselves.  Even
your post is evidence of this.  You write, with great detail and passion,
to explain the virtues of selflessness.  It is a Zen riddle, of sorts ;)
And even though what I say might sound initially unkind, I am not
faulting you.  It is how we all are.  We all want to be acknowledged.
 
When we do something nice for someone, we also do it for ourselves.  We
do it so we can think of ourselves as nice people.  It is not such a far
stretch as to want others to think of us as nice people as well.  It is
a basic human need.
 
We have all, at one time or another, done something nice for someone,
making sure that they never knew who did this nice thing for them.  We go
through great pains not to be discovered, all because our joy in doing
this thing would be diminished by their knowledge of our doing it.  In
essence, we are doing it as much for ourselves as for the person on the
receiving end of our good deed, maybe even more so.  It is not so easily
explained by the rigid definition of the word "altruism".
 
I am a man.  I open doors for people all the time.  I don't know why I
do.  I guess it's because I'm a man and I think I'm supposed to, although
women do it too.  Sometimes the person I open the door for will smile and
say thanks, and sometimes they won't.  Sometimes they will sneer at me,
as if I'd somehow insulted them or done something wrong.  I've never
really delighted in this reaction, but I've understood it.  People have
their pride.  But every once in a while I will hold the door open for
someone and they will brush past me as if I were the Ghost of Christmas
Past.  That's probably the worst of all door-opening experiences - that
feeling of invisibility.
 
I have to admit - each time I open a door for someone I am looking for
something; a smile on their face, or at the very least, a nod of the head
towards my pocket-sized kindness.  The measure of my "altruism" is not so
much defined by my invisibility as by the fact that I keep on opening
doors, smile or not, and that one snarling person does not make me want
to slam the door on the next one.  My "selflessness" has more to do about
my persistence of trying to do the right thing than my invisibility.
 
Jaws loves it when I treat him with pieces of cooked meat, especially
steak.  He can smell it cooking a mile away, and always comes trotting
into the kitchen to look up at me, begging for a piece.  He is my
meatasaurus.  Even when I'm not cooking something, he feels my footsteps
in the kitchen and follows me there, just in case.  He stands at my feet,
patiently waiting.  Besides being my meatasaurus, Jaws is my handicapped
boy.  He has a bit of trouble looking up but he manages it, even though
he's not exactly sure where up is most times.  Before I sit down to eat,
I cut off a few small pieces of my steak and put them under some cold
water to cool them and rinse off the salt and pepper.  I reach down and
hold the piece of steak next to his face, his nose weaving back and forth
until his olfactory radar picks it up and guides it to his mouth.  Most
times, he takes it and wobbles off to eat in solitude, far from the
prying noses of the other ferrets.
 
He's never left me a thankyou note or a tip, mind you.  But even in his
shaky and soundless world, he always manages to find me and look up at
me.  He reminds me that I am not invisible to him.  It is a simple
thanks, one that I understand, unspoken between he and I.  It is all I
could ask for.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, New Mexico
blog - http://ferretphilosophy.blogspot.com
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
blog - http://ferretphilosophy.blogspot.com/
[Posted in FML issue 5094]