On being Selfish

The Sower (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh

I had a discussion with my mother today. She was whining about how people trouble her or act unfair and selfish. For the most part I was just actively listening but then I started thinking proactively as I developed some some simplicities during the discussion/conversation.

What does Selfish mean ?

Google’s Definition

thinking only about your own needs or wishes and not about other people’s.

She kept ranting about people’s behavior, I listened for a long time and she said that as her daughter was also suggesting her to not speak crude or harsh reality to other friends of her. She started questioning and doubting her opinions and thoughts just for the sake to check as it was her daughter who was trying to suggest and correct her for the most part. For the last 2 weeks, I had been listening a lot to one of J Krishnamurthi’s discussion from 1972 about The Observer and the Observed and I noticed that Jiddu keeps asking simpler and shorter questions. I imagine and visualize those as layers of developing clarity. My mother kept on ranting for some more time about how people around made use of her, that made me wonder what does being selfish mean for the most part. I quickly googled the definition and while listening to her rant I went a bit dormant for a while and thought about selfishness. I had some concrete questions ready just like how jiddu does :). I was clear that atleast for the next 45 minutes I want to understand selfishness and not draw out any conclusions. Or else, I wouldn’t decently understand what being Selfish meant.

I asked her why did she care about what her daughter said, and she said she was bound to think over it because it was her own daughter who suggested her to speak less crude. I felt a bit irregular and confused on why she questioned herself just because it was her daughter. I honestly feel as humans we set some rationale about a particular persons words. Here, my mother cared too much about it because it was her “daughter”. I explained it to her why she ended up overthinking and stressing over it and the reason of all of that was the word “daughter”. The rationale here was that word which made her think and question her self awareness. I went straight ahead asking what she understood by the words “selfish” or “being selfish”. She said, “For me, selfishness is harming or not caring about others thoughts”. and this understanding in itself was so wrong. I started asking her what she had faced from other people and what she felt after that was very dismal and nonsense (I did use the word, because I wanted to make her understand how important being crude is). Passively, I was very aware to not draw out any conclusions sooner. In my understanding of the word “selfish”, I believe naturally the world selfish is very neutral and selfishness is not bound to any kind of positivity or negativity. Do give this a thought after reading this essay. For example, if we think of the word “angry”, it is related with the feeling of anger and the impact of that word is negative for the most part. I wanted her to understand what being selfish meant. She believed that anyone other than her children would or might be selfish towards her not caring about her mental health. I asked her me and my sister as “children” have to be exceptions ?

Her selfish son

I began by telling her to imagine me as a person and not as her son. I told her to think of myself as a person who had lived with them for 17 years of their life and satisfied all his needs and wishes. If we think of this in a very wild way, all of us are very selfish. As a person I was very selfish for living under their roof and feeding myself with all the luxuries. I was very brutal about how I picture myself to her. Here, everything had to be one thought being an observer on the other thought. Being selfish is good and bad. Recently, my manager asked me to be very selfish and brutal about my work or learnings and not care about anything else. Here, the selfishness I will avail for myself is positive selfishness.

In her context, the feeling of positivity or negativity within selfishness is probably passed through the air and is decided within your mind when you’re thinking. For example, if your relatives behave unfair with you and just get their work done that is indeed called being selfish but that is neither positive or negative to their context. It is our opinion on them being selfish, for the most part all of the selfishness is indirect - the person wouldn’t even directly know that they were being selfish. This is exactly how I want to relative with me being an indirectly selfish son for 17 years giving them back nothing. The world runs on a give and take transaction in everything so I believe, at least for an example give and take is and should also be a transaction between your parents and you.

Portray

It got easier later, everything she said I just had to portray as how she is being selfish against those who are tormenting her mental piece. While this was easier, I was confused at some points because it felt like a never ending loop to me, even while putting this down in an editor I can’t properly remember how I was connecting the dots in the loop. She was pissed of people’s wrong and unfair behavior and hence she went on saying crude things which for her were the reality of their white lies. I wanted her to stop thinking that way, hence I passively had a thought of long term happiness. This was very confusing to explain but let me share how I did it. We must’ve always heard of “Whatever happens, happens for good”, I deeply believe in this thought. I iterated her multiple times over this same quote and told her how she was selfish.

She likes being straight and say things straightforward to people. I told her she was being selfish for herself because by saying crude things to people she was clearing her own foggy mind, demise and was improving herself as a person or a human. In this world which is steep into mediocrity, there are very few people who think about others while not being selfish. There was this realization that probably everything in your life happens very unconditionally and indirectly. No one plans to leave you alone at a certain stage in your life or leave plan to leave you directly. Its probably you who thinks they made use of you and just left after their purpose was fulfilled.

There is thin layer of biases which our mind and eyes place upon a particular human we’re talking to. That is also the rationale.

Last but not the least, she developed good amount of clarity and sounded happy. I hung the call, washed my face and after that I messaged her over whatsapp saying “On a positive note, you were selfish because you wanted to develop clarity over your thoughts.”. To think more of it, somewhere, directly or indirectly, I was also selfish by using her to develop this deeper understanding about the word “selfish” for myself.