The thinking behind the thought
As I explained to Ann in the comment to my last post, I intended yesterday’s “thought of the day” as essentially a positive observation. That might seem strange. Heck, it is strange. It might be a bit more accurate to say it was half of a positive observation.
Yesterday I spent some time at my best friend Joseph’s while he was doing home improvement things on his house. He told me the story of a former associate of his who was thoroughly unscrupulous and untrustworthy. Not only did he lack compassion for the misfortune of others, he actively mocked those who showed such compassion. Once when Joe stuffed $20 in the tip jar of a broken-down looking old guy who played piano in a bar in which they drank, this associate said, “Why’d you give money to that old loser? People like that should just die and get out of the way.”
Now I think people get to say things like that if they want to. Unlike liberals and conservatives, to pick two examples utterly out of air, I don’t believe people should be beat up, locked up, or killed, for saying things I don’t like or disagree with. I realize that there are plenty of conservatives and liberals who believe that I should be beat up, locked up, and killed for saying any such thing myself. Some have said so. (Beliefs such as mine were once demonized as “abusive tolerance,” a phrase which thankfully I’ve not read in a long time.)
That said, people behaving like assholes don’t endear themselves to me. When I catch myself doing it, I don’t much like me. And the associate I’m talking about did defraud people by inducing them to provide him services on the basis of promises he never intended to keep. That to me actually is a crime. But since he was a lawyer, he also did it in ways that were hard to prove.
So a few years later, as you’ve probably guessed, or offender hit the skids himself. And felt terribly aggrieved and hard done by when, basically, the sharks raced in to grab their mouthfuls of his flesh, and his own former associates - including the people he’d screwed - refused to help him.
Joe feels no sympathy for this guy. Big as I am on compassion, I can’t muster much either. As I told Joe, it all seems somehow karmic.
So that’s the long way ’round the barn to this observation: being nice to people, even kindness and compassion, in the long run serve our own selfish interests. Some of the old clichés are actually true: what goes around does sometimes come around; and indeed, those you beat up on the way up frequently are those you meet up on your way back down.
It occurred to me there was an aphorism lurking amidst all this. It’s true that we can’t rely on receiving gratitude for what we do for others. In part that’s why I try to smile at people and be nice and when feasible yield of right of way because it directly gratifies me to do so, as well as usually minimizing stress and friction. My reward is not dependent upon others’ reactions. At the same time: being pleasant and nice to people, in my experience, usually produces positive results, even if it’s nothing more than a smile back. Isn’t that rewarding?
(Let me disclaim any pretense of plaster sanctity here. I omit to be perfect. I strive to act in accordance with my principles. Sometimes I fall short. The I try to do better next time.)
But while we cannot rely on gratitude, if we hurt people and seriously piss them off - don’t they tend to cherish that forever?
So I brought this up to el Joe as he was washing his coffeepot. I began, “You know, your story made it hit me: maybe we can’t rely on gratitude - ”
And he laughed and finished: ” - but anger and revenge last forever!”
And isn’t that so?
I might parenthetically mention that I do not believe in altruism among humans. In my own experience and observation, everybody gets paid. Indeed, if I don’t have a good idea of what the other party is going to get out of a transaction I usually shy away from it. In my (brutal, and early-starting) experience, those who proclaim selflessness, and claim not to want repayment for doing us good turns, in fact intend to impose upon us a debt way can never repay, which they can then exploit to profit a hundredfold. If you believe things go differently, may I respectfully suggest examining your actually experience to see if you’re not simply parroting what you’ve been taught, out of sheer habit? We all do that, way too much.
But what I’m saying is, in the long run, decency, kindness, and honesty actually are in our own best interests.
Won’t your life go more smoothly and happily if you don’t antagonize others?