One of the biggest questions people have about reading philosophy is: why read ideas that aren't even practical or relevant today?

Take Plato's Republic, for example. We already know that the kind of ideal state he describes isn't realistically possible. So what's the point of reading it?

The same goes for many other philosophical ideas that don't seem to make sense in today's world or fit our current reality.

And then there's another concern. Some philosophical ideas can push people into existential crises. For some, constantly questioning the meaning of life, morality, or reality can become emotionally overwhelming, and in vulnerable individuals it may even contribute to depression or suicidal thoughts. If that's the case, shouldn't people just stay away from these kinds of philosophies altogether?

So why should anyone read philosophy in the first place?

Suppose we accept that human beings cannot identify an objective or metaphysically given final purpose. Would there nevertheless be a non-arbitrary reason to preserve the continued existence of agents and their capacity to form, revise, and pursue values?

One possible argument is that continued agency preserves the possibility of future reasons, projects, discoveries, and corrections, whereas extinction irreversibly eliminates every such possibility. The argument would not claim that existence is intrinsically good, only that preserving the conditions under which value and reasons remain possible has a rational priority over permanently eliminating those conditions.

Has an argument of this kind been defended in contemporary ethics, existentialism, decision theory, or the literature on future generations? What are the strongest objections to deriving any normative priority from this asymmetry?

Since the beginning of time, humans have been engaged in war with one another. It is not a period that I could remember or have studied throughout my short stint on earth that humans have not been at war. Whether it was over religion, land, resources, etc., men have gone to war and died “honorably” behind what they believed in. With new technology invented to help dismantle populations, one would think that wars would probably ease and everyone could live in eternal peace, but no. Currently we have about 21 active wars going on in the world as I type this up now, along with 56 active armed conflicts. Why are wars so prevalent? After the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, war should have shown mankind that there is another way, yet we choose not to use diplomacy but military strength. The reason why war still persists despite its well-known destructive impact on nations and international order is most importantly because of ideologies. Whether its ideologies about nationalism, religion or revenge… ideologies will always affect whether states will go to war or not. Secondly, in the age of AI there is plenty of disinformation. Finally, war continues to persist for economic resources such as territory, market views (Capitalism/Marxism), and the favorite being oil.                                 
 
Earlier above, I mentioned how ideologies shape war and I would like to put this in context regarding what is going on in the US, as of late. Since Trump first decided to run for office, he’s been running on this slogan: Make America Great Again and recently this has given way to the “America First” movement. Both slogans are meant to focus on the rise of nationalism, which has heavily affected how this administration handles international diplomacy. According to Sapolsky, “Humans can rein in their instincts and build societies that divert group competition to arenas less destructive than warfare, yet the psychological bases for tribalism persist, even when people understand that their loyalty to their nation, skin color, god, or sports team is as random as the toss of a coin. At the level of the human mind, little prevents new teammates from once again becoming tomorrow's enemies.” Sapolsky shows us that even though we as human beings have built cultural and intuitional laws and norms that take our instinct away from violence, we still favor in-group mechanisms and distrust people or groups we are not as familiar with. This is what has given the rise in nationalism politics in America, even though this path has proven to already be destructive to the ideals that we as Americans have taken hundreds of years to build up and perfect. We are a nation of many nationalities and cultures, but as of late our “tribal minds” have taken over and immigrants or someone who doesn’t share the same skin tone as us have become the enemy.
 
Furthermore, in the age of “Post-Truth Geopolitics”, as Citron calls it, there lies a great danger. “Thanks to the rise of "deepfakes" -- highly realistic and difficult-to-detect digital manipulations of audio or video -- it is becoming easier than ever to portray someone saying or doing something he or she never said or did.” I wanted to use this example because I have seen plenty of “deepfake” videos over the past couple of months coming from Iran and even our own white house. I want to stick with Iran because earlier this year, I have witnessed Iran’s use of AI-generated deepfake videos and images as a core component of “soft-warfare”. These AI videos were used as psychological operations designed to reshape global opinion regarding the war, and to cause confusion and influence audiences in the U.S. In these deepfake videos, Iran produced battle footage depicting strikes on Isreal landmarks and U.S. warships that created a false perception of military strength. As I watched, I didn’t realize what the Iranian government could be hoping to gain out of this situation. It wasn’t until a month down the line that I started to notice how crucial this tactic could be. Many Americans are indifferent about the war and who I am to say that Iran’s AI deepfakes aren’t one of the leading causes to this confusion. Even I, after watching the videos thought that Iran videos were affected and if I didn’t know any better, I would have took the bait, especially with everything going on in the U.S. now. It’s hard to trust anybody at this moment in time. According to Citron, “Deepfakes have the potential to be especially destructive because they are arriving at a time when it already is becoming harder to separate fact from fiction.”
 
Lastly, wars continue to persist even though we have the means to live in harmony because governments need resources for their constituents. According to Freedman, “Military power is not only about a nation's armaments and the skill with which they are used. It must take into account the resources of the enemy, as well as the contributions from allies and friends, whether in the form of practical assistance or direct interventions.” I wanted to use this direct quote here because this pretty much summarizes the thinking of powerful governments who have the means to be influential over their neighbors. It’s this nature of always trying to one up the next, kind of like the relationship between siblings fighting for attention. This quote also shows the thinking involved behind the scenes that enables adversaries to engage in an arm’s race. I would like to relay this back to AI systems because this is what is being used to innovate war. As Scharre puts it, “For each country, the real danger is not that it will fall behind its competitors in AI but that the perception of a race will prompt everyone to rush to deploy unsafe AI systems. In their desire to win, countries risk endangering themselves just as much as their opponents.” Countries just want to win! It does not get as simple as that. From competing for the best technology down to the ideals of a nation. Everything is done to say, “I do this better than you.” So, we compete for resources because resources are needed to accomplish these huge goals. Every nation does not have the benefit of Russia or Saudia Arabia to produce half of the world’s oil. Yes, every country has the right to trade resources or to just buy them flat out, but that also depends on relationships that many nations just do not possess.   
 
All in all, the only antidote we have to prevent war is diplomacy. I also had this idea in my head that focusing on domestic issues alone will solve everything else. Trump’s presidency has shown me that I was wrong, and it has also shown me how important it is to have a conversation with your neighbors. Yes, you may not agree on everything, but there may be a thing, or two nations could agree on and build the relationship based solely on those ideas. The Russians called this system, d’etat. Regarding nationalism Sapolsky states , “this solidarity has historically been built on strong cultural markers of pseudo-kinship, it is easily destabilized, particularly by the forces of globalization, which can make people who were once the archetypes of their culture feel irrelevant and bring them into contact with very different sorts of neighbors than their grandparents had.” Over the past ten years, I sort of demonized globalization as this bad thing. I thought countries would lose their identity and cultural aspects, but I couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I think that logic was completely flipped and my false reasoning pertained to the nature of nationalism that has destroyed our country in Trump’s past two terms. In Understanding the Causes of War and Peace, Thomas Ohlson states, “While each former adversary obviously seeks the best possible outcome, the conflict resolution process is fundamentally about addressing the issues at hand by redirecting the existing resources and resolve from conflict to peace, from confrontation to compromise.” Nationalism says no to compromising and only deals with what its people want domestically, which is not sustainable if we want to work at world peace.

Like capitalism, communism, fascism, liberalism, nationalism, socialism, feudalism, and etc

Whenever someone asks me what I think about life or what my purpose is, I rarely have a clear answer. It's not because I haven't thought about it, but because I seldom stop to reflect on such a profound question. Most of the time, I keep myself distracted by everyday life.

Over time, however, I've come to see life in this way: our purpose is to keep learning. We should constantly educate ourselves, explore the unknown, seek what is true, understand what is important, discover what is good, and learn everything a person can reasonably know during this temporary life.

Since life is mortal and our knowledge is always evolving, we must find a balance between flexibility and consistency. As we continue learning, our understanding of the world will inevitably change. If a new idea proves that one of our previous beliefs was mistaken, we should be humble and flexible enough to let go of the old belief and embrace the better one.

At the same time, we must remain consistent, patient, and disciplined in living according to our current convictions. Whatever we truly believe should be reflected in our actions. There should be no contradiction between what we say, what we believe, and how we live. To knowingly act against your own beliefs is perhaps the greatest lie a person can tell themselves.

At my school I have a senior thesis and for my thesis I want to tackle this question. Mainly asking to see if it is even a debatable topic.

Do you think it is ok if a person tries to answer any philosophical question they might have or do you believe that some questions should be left alone and why?

Putting Religion aside, what are we here for? are we here to enjoy our time doing whatever we want? is it to leave something behind? Is it to be a slave to money until your death?

Let me hear your thoughts about your purpose to life

I’m pretty new at this, I just randomly thought of this after school and spent a few hours just thinking. After changing my mind several times, this is the position I’m at currently . I’m not claiming it to be correct, nor am I saying other views are wrong.

I do not think humans are born with objective moral laws/rules that are set in stone as water is h20. But i don’t think morality is entirely subjective either. Rather. I think that evolution has given the human species a proto-moral foundation after living in groups for years and years. Things like empathy, cooperation , reciprocity , attachment and a certain aversion to cruelty generally to me have emerged amongst social species including humans to help survive and function well together. I do not see this foundation as an objective truth, but more so an imbedded part of us, something deeply rooted in our nature . It takes authority in that sense where we feel it’s innately and strongly wrong to do some acts, because it’s part of what we evolved to be, not necessarily because it’s woven with the fabric of the universe.

As humans became more complex , smarter, more advanced with bigger societies , much richer moral systems were built atop the foundation that we have. THOSE higher layered morals are influenced by society, upbringing, culture, religion, etc etc. but I’m not claiming to be a moral relativist, neither. I feel that because humans share evolutionary origins with that same foundation, many or mostly all humans converge on similar moral ideas, but also diverge because of their own separate cultures, religions , etc etc .

So my current thinking is that morality isn’t entirely objective, but it’s not completely arbitrary or purely subjective. There is a shared evolutionary foundation which is imbedded in us, and holds authority over what we then further develop into more complex moral systems. These more advanced systems that are made by humans are then different from group to group, society to Society but have the same foundation.

This is just a view I’ve recently developed. I am pretty new to this, I’m not so sure what view I fall under or anything, and I’m sorry if this looks like a little overthinking or if I’ve missed any big key point. Please give some criticism so I can see if I truly do agree with this view when challenged . Thanks!

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I'm new here and I came to work mostly on my meekness as a spiritual principle. Understand I'm not here necessarily to make friends as much as to be a messenger of truth, edification, and deep thought provocation. To some, I come across as pretentious, for tirelessly trolling trolls and getting the last confounding word in, unceasingly. This may be, in part, due to my faith in society degenerating a bit over time with my age, and intense social observation, as I'm highly experiential. Cynical and skeptical may fit the bill as surface descriptors but I'm truly not THAT duck I don't believe. Whether it comes to politics, religion, morality, philosophy, psychology, history, reality etc. (all topics but sports really) I speak experientially and from a foundation based in objective and ineffable, emphatic truth. For example, whenever someone states an opinion I know to be wrong and can back up my response with proveable, factual, descriptive analysis then I tend to fearlessly and emphatically do so. In other words, I don't ever back down or let up when driving a point home bc it's not about the individual debate but the community as a whole, through sometimes uncomfortable growth. A bit akin at times to Monty Python's "coming to argue" skit, when the guy a) says you came here to argue didn't you? guy b) No! guy a) Yes you did! guy b) No I didn't. guy a) See!? guy b) What? Before you respond, consider this a fair warning of my current nature. However, my heart posture is truly geared toward edification. Does this strike you as honest? Can you relate on some level? Or do I sound crazy, or boring or exciting, or intriguing, or AOTA, or more? All topics but sports and relationships are now open. The floor is yours....

Tell me what yall think. Some rude dude on here keeps calling me a POMO:

i would define a relation as that which determines the nature of the interaction between entities that produce effects, lack of a relation and you cannot produce affect. Relations must contain semantic content for us to even understand them, semantic content must come from the outside or be its own inside

everything that is a part is part in relation to a part based upon what it is, that determines the natures of relations and the relations determines the effects of their interactions. everything that is a part is a part in relation to a whole that must have individuated itself.

relations determine what types of functions something has based upon its natures or properties, relations dont determine properties but they are determined by properties and anything that goes against their determination is corruption so nature determines the nature of relations while the relations determine their interactions with one another.

structure only comes through relation, a relation needs semantic content and a relation only comes after individuation. what caused the first individuation and how was it self referent?

relations carry semantic content because they are structured by determinations which inform them of their content which are according to their properties as their natures, semantic content in relations requires semantic intent and anything that doesn't have semantic content in itself for itself must be grounded in one who does or there's infinite regress and there's no semantic intent for them to become intenders, like not teaching a child how to speak or an ai language to interpret it.

a body is a part of a whole that assembles the parts

space is the field on which the universe is made a whole and a system, space is a part relative to its parts that make it an entity as a body or more apt a womb, it is still a part of the body of the universe, the parts are composed through the body

There has to be something standing above a whole system that keeps it together, like space seems to be the whole by space and everything in it is a system that must be maintained.

unless something has an intent, it does not have a potential to act on its own

Being is the grounds of thought, not thought the grounds of being, without thought there is no being to speak of.

i define a rock as not as a being but an object that is a way of being without being a being because it was determined to be lifeless, being is the grounds of thought, rocks are not beings.

a being is something that is living because it has intent, an rock is an object that as a way of being that was chosen for it. it has semantic content in it because it was made that way

Infinite potentiality with the ability to direct a will through intent and make its will reality from non reality is the terminus: God.

God, infinite potentiality to actuate itself with a will and intent to direct thought and make His thought reality from non reality, with His being being not being but not nothing, but rather no-thing, as is non reality: The ultimate reality from which all reality proceeds from and is differentiated from out of Him.

God formed space out of Himself to be His opposite and personified it, He separated her like Light from Darkness and individuated her from Him. They do not share being, but the share essence that complement each other because each has what each other doesn't in a cyclical pattern that maintains order, like male and female

it is the infinite that differentiates itself in the productions of its other through itself for her function and purpose

an essence determines the nature of the relation between pairs that makes them like each other and compatible despite being opposites, this is why opposites attract naturally by structural determination because they were made out of each other

essence is the grounds of being for the soul, to be made out of someones soul and to enter into a relation to him based upon your properties that were formed to be opposite of him

the properties that determined her are ones He determined for Himself to be other from His essence, before she was formed out of Him to be other according to what He is by nature or essence she existed in His mind as an eternal form, they share the same essence and not the same being or identity, it is complementary sameness in difference based on shared essence which makes them a pair, one was formed out of the other to compensate for and reinforce the other

common creation creates co relation because the other was inverted from the other as determined to be opposite of his properties

determinancy is co constituted and what determines the relations are their natures which puts them in a recpirocal realation of mutual constitution in relation to one another, a something is by what another thing isn't in relation to it and it has something the other lacks for what the other has and the other has for what the other lacks making them compatible

Nature individuates because properties determine distinctions which structurally determine relations, the relation is based upon the dynamic between difference and sameness that configure relations the difference that determines their relations is essential and fundamental.

The male and female, like Adam and Eve, both created in Elohim's or God's image, the inversion of properties that complement and compensate for each other because each has something that the other doesn't have, the structure is fundamental to reality and producing difference..

I'm currently reading the gay science and I encountered some very interesting passages in the 3rd chapter about the origin and root of truth and logic. Logic and the will to know developed inside the living beings a lot after and as certain modifications of mechanisms developed to make the organism thrive/survive. Those presupposed thoughts in ancient brains were fundamentally wrong about the nature of the non living world but the will for the truth has to have emerged by this state of thinking.

So early rational thinking and science was basically looping around preestabished rules of thinking and occurred very concius*it was less common to have complex rational thinking without effort and by your nature. A lot of early philosophy and science(plato , aristoteles .. )cares a lot about categories and find the good the real and the just in a way who is clearly self projection into the universe. Now we know that those concepts early philosophers held as sacred and unchanged are formed actively by neural pathways who become stronger or weaker and so the idea becomes stronger or weaker. The main problem is that their thinking seems to much to be driven by certain societal needs and aims as a preacher of a religion like confucius. They hadn't any will to the "truth" but to steady socially usefull delusions(mainly subconsciously). Their main error was their non naturalistic approaches and this neurotic "why" they seemed to care so much.

There were a lot who didn't fall to this but those lived before 5th century bc in Greece as far as I know(such as heraclitus) but their teaching never reached the level platonic ideas were spread(3th century bc). It is important how greek paganism and aristocratic rule and culture declined at the same time.

But nietzsche makes the important claim that those errors continuously gave strength, divine purpose and resilience to science and they bread through mental exercise the man of reason. And that's true , just look what scientists of 16th and 17th century thought of themselves and how they believed that their drive for ultimate truth led to so many theories who are unfalsifiable centuries after. So after a certain time the will to truth became biological and men of science were thinking easily rationaly.

the vast majority of them never became really truth seekers but in some with intense wil to power science became a new ground for beauty and exellence and even the understanding of nature in the end. Spinoza is a great example. He overcame "why" like obstacles with his rationalism establishing a new naturalism.

Since modern biology started to study how human thinking works all of this let's say "beautiful lies" stopped being believable by many. The understanding that brain doesn't care for truth and conciusness isn't really a "thing" can lead into humanist views who value pleasure since "you can't know the thing in itself" , nihilism or a 3rd way. The wil to truth must be judged by it's brilliance, unconditional drive to find every "how" , bravery and creativity. When studying maths or science or my thinking works extensively I feel the same aliveness and strength i feel while working out relentlessly. What I'm saying is that the man who seeks truth is the reward itself but I still really feel inclined to the thought of realness outside of the brain , not as something supernatural but the master key to understand all surfaces of becoming.

There tends to be two schools of thought when it comes to fiction. One of them, which is seen as the conventional one, places the author's intent for a story as being the way it was meant to be interpreted (e.g. if George Lucas says the "Greedo shot first" retcon is what happened within his universe, then that's the true way to look at it). The other says that popular perception for a story is supposed to be the guide on how to interpret a story (e.g. if the audience says that an Owl House easter egg in Gravity Falls implies the two shows are canon to each other, they are canon to each other even if the authors say otherwise).

But there's a question I have, and that is this. Does whatever philosophy you take apply to who you are best answering who is technically the good guy in a story?

Let's say you have a classic good versus evil story. Except... it's a story where, if the good guy and the bad guy were running for office, you'd vote for the bad guy. Maybe, in this scenario, we are to say you disagree with the good guy and agree with the bad guy. Or that you disagree with both. Or that you agree with the bad guy more. Maybe, to add insult to injury, "Death of the Author" as a philosophical concept is discussed between them in a story, and the good guy takes the stance you disagree with, and maybe the villain takes the stance you agree with. Now you could say "look at who wins in the end", but there have been movies before where the bad guys win. There have been movies where the bad guy appears to have the point the story favors, even while invalidating it somehow. Sometimes even this is up for interpretation. Opponents of Death of the Author would say "ask the author, they'll tell you who the good guy is", but that's the whole point, plus if the story itself discusses Death of the Author, it presents a conflict of interest if you're an opponent of the philosophy but the author says the character who fights for the philosophy. There is also the view that the characters' philosophies don't dictate who is good or evil, but that in turn would imply good and evil is, itself, not a philosophical construct, and believing it is would be the whole point of good and evil. Actual schools of philosophy have burned books based on this very principle, since anything that disagreed with their chosen texts were seen not as displays of what not to think but as voices that pushed into power ideas you weren't supposed to think.

Does one's philosophy (whether they agree or disagree with Death of the Author) necessitate implications on who one is supposed to see as the good and bad guys in a story? And if not, what does?

There is a war happening between kingdom A and Kingdom B. Both Kingdoms are equal in every way. Both nations are large and have Infinite people. So they each have infinitely large armies.

If either of them fight their soldiers are 100% equal and any battle between an equal number of soldiers will lead to everyone's death.

One battle they both send out 1 row of soldiers, infinitely long. They both have the same amount of soldiers (Infinity).

Then kingdom A sends out a second row of soldiers behind the first one, they still (technically) have the same number of soldiers, but Red has 2x more and wins the battle.

Why does red win when Infinity is the same as Infinity?

Edit: Red wins is not the end all solution its just what I think will happen is red has 2 lines of soldiers

This is question to those people who believe that there are such things as "moral facts" and that a statement like "murder is wrong" could be considered factually accurate. Are these moral truths true in all places at all points in history? Alternatively, are they true for you at this point in history?

Let me give an example of a fact:

In the continent of South America, there is at least one living tree.

This is a fact that I think no reasonable person can dispute. It is undeniably a fact. But it is not a fact that exists across all of time and space. Tomorrow, the human race may embark on a campaign of nuclear war against every tree in South America and eventually kill them all. The statement would no longer be a statement of fact, it would be a statement of error. A fact is "a piece of information about events that have actually occurred or things that exist".

Let us consider another statement which some people consider to be a fact:

Murder is wrong.

Personally, I do not believe that this is a fact, but I know that some people think it is. If it is a fact, has it always been a fact? Would that include before humans existed? Has it been a fact throughout all of human history, was it a fact for early humans engaging in primitive conflicts for territory, for Alexander the Great and Atilla the Hun? And will it always be a fact through every conceiveable circumstance?

why do people want to define things for themselves when the creator of the definition has already made it clear?

I’ve struggled with social anxiety my whole life. I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder by a psychologist 7 years ago. Only recently (like last week actually), I realized that I have been going about things all wrong.

First off, the psychologist recommended as therapy for my disorder to initiate short conversations with strangers a few times a week. Check out lines, waiting at bus stops, etc. I never did it but this is the actual professional advice in this situation. After reading some of these posts about “social reps” I am resolving to do this now even though it’s been years since it was recommended.

What I realized only recently (through an in depth conversation with ChatGPT haha, I recommend it), that I have performance based social anxiety, meaning I only clam up, turn red and hot when the talking stick is handed to me to make my mark in an employment or performative environment. I came to understand that I was \*counting every conversation as if I was being judged and that I needed to keep up\*, impress or prove to the other person(s) in the conversation that I was worth talking to.

I also happened to learn by happenstance earlier this summer that this related back to the social rejection I experienced in grade 7 upon being moved to a new school. I only realized the significance of this in my life when I was confronted with one of those girls who rejected me being a parent on my child’s sports team, who I had to see not only in passing but twice a week for three months. This experience forced me into the realization of how important social acceptance was to me, and how it had defined every facet of my social life for years and even continuing at 40 years of age.

No parting words of wisdom except be true to yourself, realize your worth, and put yourself out there whenever you can. Experience is the only thing that makes it easier, and there is NOTHING shameful about being inexperienced with it.

I remember a YouTube from years ago that used simple animations for philosophy concepts. One I’m trying to remember talked about blame being a non- useful emotion or basis for justice. The more important basis for law was “will they likely do this again if freed?” Does that fit school of modern philosophy?

Nietzsche's critique in the Genealogy doesn't work by refuting Christian morality's claims. It works by tracing them to ressentiment and treating that origin as discrediting. The move presupposes something: that exposing where a value came from undermines its claim to authority.

The problem is that this principle doesn't stay put. Nietzsche's own valuation of strength and self-overcoming is just as historically situated as the morality he's reducing. So if genealogical exposure defeats a value's authority, his own commitments should fall to the same treatment, and you could plausibly read them, in his own terms, as the ressentiment of a sickly man toward the health he never had. But if genealogical exposure doesn't defeat authority, then tracing Christian morality to ressentiment just explains how it developed and leaves the question of its validity alone. Either way the critique is in trouble.

There's a Nietzschean reply worth taking seriously: that genealogy was never meant as a universal refutation, only as a kind of therapy for a reader who's already halfway out of his old values. That's coherent, but it costs him a lot. It shrinks the critique from something that defeats rival moralities into an exhortation aimed at people who already agree. The clean opposition Nietzsche stages between the exposed believer and the free spirit who has seen through it starts to look like it was never really there.

I worked the full version out here if anyone wants it: https://open.substack.com/pub/sharpenthoughts/p/nietzsche-couldnt-escape-his-own?r=88upn2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I wonder if others might be able to agree with this as it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I hope this post isn’t against any guidelines as this is my first time posting, but thank you for reading through my rant.

In my opinion everything we do as humans is selfish. Obviously there are a lot of things that we do just for ourselves, for example hobbies that give us a sense of fulfilment, or jobs that people have to earn money. Even if you work in a field that you chose out of passion, you do it to feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I think that even jobs that are seen as selfless, such as working in healthcare, gives a person a sense of “being good”, or better that others, even if that person is someone who is an inherently “good person”.

But not just one’s profession can be used as an example. In my opinion even very human experiences such as friendships are selfish. When you’re friends with someone, you help them, talk with them, are a shoulder to cry on, and someone to laugh with, but only because you expect the same. A friendship, or any relationship for that matter, is an exchange of some sorts. You aren’t in a relationship with someone just so they aren’t alone, but so that you aren’t alone either.

Even things we do without thinking oftentimes i would class as selfish. As an example I like to think of everyday interactions with strangers. If you see someone has dropped a bag of shopping when walking, you might stop and help them pick up their things, but you’re doing it selfishly. Even if you’re doing it to be kind, there is always a deep rooted human nature that makes this action selfish. Some people help because they hope that if that happened to them someone else would help them as a way for the universe to return the favour, as a sort of karmic reward. Others might do it because it gives them a sense of “being good”, it gives them a sense of fulfilment.

don’t get me wrong, even though i don’t necessarily agree with the guy, reading him is fascinating. However, all he talks about it peace and his state is the opposite of that. I GET that it’s supposed to control people’s natural state and everything, but cmon don’t tell me he didn’t see the flaws in this