Welcome to Gaia! ::

Goodnight Mr. Sleepypants!

It isn't advised.

Just a bit... I've been trying to read since about 11:30, though eating ice cream and my cat trying to get said ice cream did slow down my progress for the first half hour or so... I'm on the sub-forums...finally..........*thuds*

The key part of your post was this.



If you take this stance, i suppose you are not living for yourself. However, if you live entirely for others, you cease to be meaningful. You, as an individual no longer have any purpose. Yes, you could argue you are not being selfish. However, if you live entirely for others, suicide could easily become the appropriate course of action. By being completely selfless, you have no say in whether you live or die.

So sure, you can live without being selfish. However, you lose all meaning if you do.

sweatdrop The music and art/poetry/ect are just too much for me right now... and I'm too tired to continue much longer.

Verbal trap? Only in that i could have made it simpler. The basic premise is quite true. In fact, i think i will rephrase it.

A certain degree of selfishness is required for a human to live as we know it. This is because selfishness is required both for survival, and for self awareness. The first is obvious, but the second may not be. If one is self aware, his/her natural survival instincts will take the form of selfishness. To this degree, there is nothing wrong with being selfish. It is required to survive, as are instincts in an animal.

If instead, one decided to live entirely for something else, (s)he sacrifices these survival instincts. Instead, you replace the instincts, or selfishness, with something else. Perhaps it is loyalty to a god, person or cause. No matter to what you devote yourself, you are giving up a core part of yourself to something else. By sacrificing your survival instincts, your selfishness, you give up the part of yourself that makes you live. While you may find a replacement, you will still have given up an essential part of you, namely your individuality.

I am not sure it would be possible to truly lose all selfishness, but if you did you would not truly be human. Of course, this is in part a matter of semantics, as survival instincts are only selfish in the most literal interpretations.

Woah, i ramble too much.

Heh. Sorry about that. I just like to think about things, and it can help to talk to other people while thinking.

And sometimes i think i am always incoherent. Maybe i am, but i am just so confusing people do not realize it?

I am not attacking him. Well, i suppose i did a bit in a good-natured way, but nothing i have said was meant to be mean.

If anything i said has seemed mean, i do apologize.