Any action that a person does, s/he does it because
1. it is essential for life and /or it makes life comfortable, AND/OR
2. it boosts one's ego.
Eating, sleeping... falls wholly in the first category.
Ur work can fall completely fall in the first category, or completely in the second category, or in both, depending on the person....
I dont believe in philanthropy, not in the way the world perceives it...
Take philanthropy and blogging, for example... Everybody recognises a person blogs ONLY for reason 2. In fact one of my friends even goes on to say, blogging is masturbation of the ego... cant help but admit...
Stripping down philanthropy to its basics, it is an ego boosting too... u do it only for the "See, i made a difference" feeling, or what is infintely worse, a patronising attitude thats worse (or better ) than the ego masturbation through blogging...
What beats me completely is all the hype and adulation that surrounds philanthropy... i mean, u dont say blogging is a virtue, do u? when philanthropy does the same thing, why the hell do you deify the process?
In fact, philanthropy is even more sickening because the while person at the receiving end will be happy and end up revering you, you will be fuelling your own damned ego...
Remove all the hype, the halo and virtues that adorn philanthropy, and stop feeling self- righteous for what u do... and then, i'll accept philanthropy..
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6 comments:
Ishwar,
I don't have anything to disagree with this post seen in isolation. But, because, (in a private conversation) you termed it as a reply to my comment http://suddenlee.blogspot.com/2004/09/emancipating-ettayapuram-origins.html#c109644559319460834 , I am posting my comments.
First, to me, this a statement of the obvious, a restatement (not motivated by) my comment http://suddenlee.blogspot.com/2004/09/emancipating-ettayapuram-origins.html#c109644559319460834. It may be an expression of your angst or whatever at the people who (implicitly) claim to be righteous for doing some thing that we do to satisfy our ego. But, the context in which you used, it is misdirected. Our e-mail signatures, blogs, writings, and any expression outside one's self doesn't characterise one's personality. A typical example is my case. Having known me in person to some extent, do you think I am what my blogs and e-mail signatures define? My blogs are an attempt to write for an audience not for my self. Similarly, my e-mail signatures are auto-collected from my 'too-primitive' crawler, and auto-chosen by my script. Many a time, I hate the signatures in my sent box. So, you judging some one as seeking patronage based on an e-mail signature is flawed. AFIK, he was doing it only for the satisfaction of his ego. And I was the one who asked him to retain the signature for the sake of linguistic aesthetics and also sending a subtle message to the receivers. I think you wanted an event on which to post your pre-conceived thoughts. Recently, a professor in Cyber communities, who was giving a course to us in our company, made this observation: "However comfortable you are with a cyber-community, you would want to anchor it to some real life event to make yourself feel that everything you do is real. A classing example is "Laughing out aloud, every one's looking at me" or "It's drizzling here" during a online chat conversation."
To some what restate the essence of your post, (obviously with my spin to it) any apparently altruistic activity is motivated by the need to satisy one's ego or the super-ego (community). I see nothing wrong as long as one knows this fact. The self-congratulatory look at one's own blog may be no different in essence than scale from the self-congratulatory look Larry Wall will have on Perl. But, we should be happy that Wall's ego helps us. So is with 'social service'.
Sundar
Sundar,
Alternate proofs are not required.
Ishwar,
I do not see the distinction between your two points either.......I want to live because of my ego, and I have an ego 'cause am living.
Aaarghhh...what bullshit!
I know I'm gonna be sneered at for over-simplifying matters, but to corrupt a cliche, isn't this a prime example of the end justifying the motive? So, why the f*** should anybody give a damn, what motivated Sundar, Sanjeeth et. al, as long as they're 'emancipating' ettayapuram?
Ambar,
The "End" is not justifying anything - because it's worth a horse's ass as to how a few people lead their lives.
The means is masturbation - am all for it. Just that call it what it is.
Nilu
In response to Ishwar's blog and Sundar's comment,
I couldnt agree with Ishwar more on the truths of human mind and activity in the name of philanthropy. A very loosely used word to put everything wrong, right and the most egoistic and selfcentered escape. A true philanthrope would do good and not pride over it at all. And so is not the case of this self proclaiming race we dwell in.
The blogging is a sure fuel to ego. I woudnt write here if I didnt want anyone to read it. I aint doing any favor or good. Nothing shit happens if I dont write....But i am happy.
Sundar, your claim that u can so well present a different conscious self to your audience that has no input from your sub conscious is unacceptable and crap. No way could you avoid being urself to get a blog for anyone...unaware, you are inputing ur thoughts and opinions and redirect it to mislead everyone around if u claim ur real person is not potraited in ur blog. You need a bite of realization.
By your post here, have you said u are not to be judged on basis of fame and egoism as the sole purpose of ur deeds...whatever man that is..what ever.
Anyways...some damn motivation to blog to send out a truly philanthropic attitude is utter nonsense.
Nothing to add but something to kill my time and pointing out other mistakes...all this just to boost my ego...
Niki
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