Egotism and Horizon of Consciousness
Human being is considered as a selfish being, concerned for itself, not for others. Even altruism acts can be traced as also selfish acts; yearning tributes for eternal life, good names and reputations, future careers and politics. Even the most altruistic act, a love from a mother to ber children can be seen as a selfish act, because it makes her feel good.
All of these is not necessarily bad. As Adam Smith said: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Selfish acts are seen as problems because of our lack for horizon of consciousness. Horizon of consciousness is the inability of our mind to comprehend the limit of cause and effect toward self.
The space horizon seen a concept of self as limited to one-self. It is not necessarily so. Self can be expanded to ones family, related kins, neighbors, nations, even the whole world. Everything that is done to our family is done to us, everything to the world is an act to us. In that sense, there are no rooms for egotism. When we cannot see the result, it doesn't mean it's done to us. The "us" itself is the problem.
The time horizon demand to see immediate result of everything. When we trespass this horizon, everything that we have done is never useless. This immediate things are the remnants of our limited stay in this world (a fancy way to say that we are going to die :p ). Everything is a process, and nothing is loss, says the conservation of energy theory in thermodynamics. When we cannot see it, it doesn't meant it is not there, maybe it is not there yet.
By expanding the horizon, we can see how it really works. There are no room of egotism or altruism. We differentiate them only because of our limitation. Everything done is done. That's all.
All of these is not necessarily bad. As Adam Smith said: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Selfish acts are seen as problems because of our lack for horizon of consciousness. Horizon of consciousness is the inability of our mind to comprehend the limit of cause and effect toward self.
The space horizon seen a concept of self as limited to one-self. It is not necessarily so. Self can be expanded to ones family, related kins, neighbors, nations, even the whole world. Everything that is done to our family is done to us, everything to the world is an act to us. In that sense, there are no rooms for egotism. When we cannot see the result, it doesn't mean it's done to us. The "us" itself is the problem.
The time horizon demand to see immediate result of everything. When we trespass this horizon, everything that we have done is never useless. This immediate things are the remnants of our limited stay in this world (a fancy way to say that we are going to die :p ). Everything is a process, and nothing is loss, says the conservation of energy theory in thermodynamics. When we cannot see it, it doesn't meant it is not there, maybe it is not there yet.
By expanding the horizon, we can see how it really works. There are no room of egotism or altruism. We differentiate them only because of our limitation. Everything done is done. That's all.
posted by Oni Suryaman at 5:55 pm
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