hmmm... maybe so, sometimes (one man's achievement is another man's trash) but... humanity's ambition (at least in its part) resulting from its competitive impulse... and where were our ambitions without a very strong "self" (or in your word - selfishness) ?
i guess i just feel that self needs to be all-inclusive..
i enjoy competition when i am competing well, not necessarily when i am winning. even in that example, i would rather be a worthy opponent than a mismatch.. i don't enjoy a game in which the opposition becomes dejected, gives up. so in that sense, i don't think competition is necessarily selfish. i think we have it in ourselves to identify with another's self.
well, you're sensitive, and a "mantch" (Yiddish word, hard to translate, but it means "a man" in the best sense of this term) and you're not a professinal competitor (makes it for living or to get high score or a medal) and I'm not referring only to sport, but to any field - science, art, politics... "identify with another's self" belongs more to social work or social involvement, to psychology...
i only say all this because i feel that i am deeply selfish.
i have spent my life as people do trying to figure out what makes me tick and i see it (selfishness) everywhere i am.
knowing that i have a tendency to be too easy on myself i developed a sort of unspoken rule about self-truth that is: 'the harder the truth, the more credible it probably is'.
so i have gotten into patterns of moral asceticism with that.. i can take it too far..
on identifying with other selves as being tied to social involvement- isn't social involvement what being human is all about?
but... humanity's ambition (at least in its part) resulting from its competitive impulse...
and where were our ambitions without a very strong "self" (or in your word - selfishness) ?
i enjoy competition when i am competing well, not necessarily when i am winning. even in that example, i would rather be a worthy opponent than a mismatch.. i don't enjoy a game in which the opposition becomes dejected, gives up. so in that sense, i don't think competition is necessarily selfish. i think we have it in ourselves to identify with another's self.
and you're not a professinal competitor (makes it for living or to get high score or a medal)
and I'm not referring only to sport, but to any field - science, art, politics...
"identify with another's self" belongs more to social work or social involvement, to psychology...
i have spent my life as people do trying to figure out what makes me tick and i see it (selfishness) everywhere i am.
knowing that i have a tendency to be too easy on myself i developed a sort of unspoken rule about self-truth that is: 'the harder the truth, the more credible it probably is'.
so i have gotten into patterns of moral asceticism with that.. i can take it too far..
on identifying with other selves as being tied to social involvement- isn't social involvement what being human is all about?