The Ultimate Act of Selfishness

Self Interest Turned Inside Out

Dear Friend

It means a lot more than I can adequately express, to receive the encouraging and surprising comments that have been coming in to the Substack.

I want to say thank you. I hope you’re well. That something good is happening for you.

Thank you for making time to for this.

Sometimes parts of me make an appearance who would like me to pull back a little on sharing.

It’s not that what I’m calling, the false self, doesn’t have wisdom to share.

If we have a goal we’re working towards and we tell others about it, we can mistake the buzz we get talking for the energy we need to take actions.

Telling about it begins to feel as if you’ve already achieved it. This is particularly true when the parts of ourselves that crave social recognition come to the fore.

I have so many writing partners. Not all of them helpful. Inner voices that would have the one who writes, go do something else instead. Who amongst is isn’t familiar with procrastination.

“Pro” from the Latin meaning “forward”.

“Crastinus” - "belonging to tomorrow,"

Putting off until tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when it comes is always today.

The future is an idea. Our lived reality is always now. Ever new. Ever changing.

The habit of putting things off till tomorrow. We all do it. We do it with small things. We can also put off living till tomorrow. The deepest parts of ourselves want to be discovered. Even the parts that hide, afraid of being found out as less than, secretly they want to be accepted, brought home.

One part of us lobbies for procrastination. Another berates us for doing it. No wonder we can get so tangled up. .

The roles that play us are many. That’s not a typo.

Family’s, probably all across the world, do an oddly loving thing.

Ideally family roles would be like a colourful mobile, the kind you’d hang over a child’s cot. The parts are meant to move freely. The movement of shapes reflecting the light delight the child. Deep down the child self knows that life is a dance. Our roles, fluid.

Ever new in the present moment, ever changing.

Families though, can tend towards a habit, passed down the generations of freezing who we are. The mobile gets jammed, stuck, unmoving.

We get stuck in roles.

Labelled.

The good one, the funny one.

The star.

The one always falling behind.

The sensible one. The sweet one.

The clumsy one, The giddy one.

The impulsive one, the bright one.

The talented one.

The lost one.

And if we land in a deeply dysfunctional net of relationships, we accept other labels, words I don’t like to use.

Insults we take to heart.

We can heal from hurts through wilfully, genuinely, being kind. To be kind is the singularly most selfishly motivated thing anyone can do for themselves and others.

Making kindness a goal.

Refusing to condemn. Even when you know you are right, that stuff is poison to the mind.

I count myself lucky to have had a role model in my mother. She was so incredibly kind, gentle and astonishingly strong.

After her death, I went around our home town, letting people know. The chemist, her hairdresser, what they all said.

“Oh we loved your mother, she was so kind.”

Every wounding this world can deal, heals with kindness.

Where we meet ourselves in perhaps our truest role.

That of a friend.

You know how it is when you feel like the conversation just picked up again, as if no time has passed. As if a month, a year or even a decade was nothing but a puff of imagination. For me those joined in friendship are never really apart.

The world likes to tear us apart. Ian Curtis’s performance in Joy Division’s classic “Love Will Tear Us Apart” speaks I think something of this.

For those parts of ourselves which we cannot love, kindness heals.

The more we give of those things in life that are really really precious, the more precious things come back to us.

The false self intervenes in an attempt to distract from the obvious logic that peace comes from peace.

Naked self interest, would probably be one of the least attractive human qualities. It’s not on any of the big lists of virtues. Not on Benjamin Franklin’s, or on any original spiritual texts.

To be kind is the most nakedly selfish act of generosity imaginable.

See what happens the next time one of those internal voices starts up.

“Too old.”

“Too young.”

“Too stupid.”

“Fake.”

Really?

What happens when we put our greatest needs front and centre? The need to belong, to be understood, emotionally held. Kindness given to another. Kindness given to oneself.

Imagine.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey