The Truth of Selfishness

All our lives, we are told that if we don't want to have children, we are selfish. Don't believe me? That's because you probably have children and have never had to hear it. And I don't mean the good best-me-I-can-be selfish which actually exists but of which most people are ignorant, but the me-me-me-I-me selfish because the world revolves around me selfish. "You aren't having kids? That's awfully selfish of you." "You don't want a baby? You must be very selfish." I won't get into the how and why of that, because I pretty much don't understand it, but I will say I used to agree and be OK with it. I figured since I didn't want to do the things that are involved with having and raising a kid, I must be selfish. Selfish with my time, my relationships, my possessions. OK, so I'm selfish. And I'm fine with that.

Except now I'm not. I've come to my senses. I got tired of being the bad guy, when the truth is actually the complete opposite. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing more selfish than having a kid.

From the very beginning: "I'm having a baby!" "I'm expecting!" "We're pregnant!" (Of course, that last one is always annoying. If anything, the two of you together failed at birth control. We? Your partner ejaculated and nothing caught it.) Look at all of these statements. They are all me-me-me.

Then the next eight months or so are all about you. How you are feeling, how nauseated you are, how your boobs look, what you can and can't do, what you want to eat, what you can't eat. How you are dying for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine but you can't because you are pregnant. How important it is that the world makes concessions for your condition. How you can't go into a place that serves a certain kind of food because it will make you ill. How you can't be expected to act normally and do certain things because you have hormonal fluctuations and you forget things because you are pregnant. It's not your fault. And no one else has ever been through anything like this before. Just you. It's all about you. Is that not selfish? That no one else's workday or home life is important because you are doing the very important job of breeding? Yeah, see, my life and my job are still going on over here and you are now negatively affecting it because you are the selfish one, not me.

selfish

/ˈsɛlfɪʃ/

adjective 

1.

chiefly concerned with one's own interest, advantage, etc, 

especially to the total exclusion of the interests of others

It doesn't end there. Oh no, it's just the beginning. Birth. Endless stories about what it what like and what the child does minute to minute. Come see my new baby and I will tell you all about me and what I went through and what my my my life is like now that I don't get enough sleep and it's so hard for me and you have no idea because you haven't been through what I have been through because you're too selfish to do what I did and I don't want to hear anything about you because it's all about me and what I'm going through because I'm more important than you because I brought another life into the world, so selflessly.

Somehow, it's all twisted into some weird illogical thing of not being selfish because it's all about this other life brought into the world. "See, it's not all about me, it's about my kid. So that's not selfish. I'm thinking only of my child. I'm very noble, after all. Not selfish at all. How can it be selfish when everything I do is for the good of my child?" Well, let's see. Let's go back to the definition posted above. Your kid is your own interest and you are chiefly concerned with your kid to the total exclusion of the interests of others. You can't attend something because of your kid. You can't get to work because of your kid. You can't pull your weight on a project to which you committed because something came up with ... your kid. That's all well and fine. You are raising a human. It takes work, and so-called sacrifice (although don't even try to tell us you didn't know what you were getting into - we knew enough to not get into it). But don't dare say I'm selfish and you are selfless for what you are doing. I'm still over here pulling my weight, and now yours. Because your life with your kid is more important. How does that make me the selfish one? I have to work around you and your pregnancy/kid things that come up because ... I'm selfish? I don't think that's how that works.

Let's look at that definition again with a different lens. "Chiefly concerned with one's own interest especially to the total exclusion of the interests of others." Why does one have a baby? When you ask, the answer is "because I wanted one." Or five. So, that was to your own interest to the total exclusion of the rest of the world, which is overpopulated. Too many humans for the resources here on this finite world. Humans are not endangered. If you weren't being selfish, might you have adopted a human that was already here, rather than further burdening the system? Rather than creating more of a carbon footprint? No, having a child is the very definition of "selfish."

Are all who procreate like this? Of course not. Not at all. Those that aren't like that have never called me selfish. So this was never aimed at them. There are wonderful parents who are really good at it and are raising wonderful kids and everything is grand. Those people are awesome. Those people never make it everyone else's problem. They are not selfish and would never accuse me of being selfish. I don't know how they do it, and they are super-aces in my book, because I could never do what they do.

Because, you know, apparently I'm selfish. Begin again.

Killing Ourselves with Stuff

From collective-evolution.com: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/22/feeding-the-consumption-were-killing-each-other-the-planet/

"In the past ten years alone, one third of the world’s natural resources have been used up."

We are a society of consumers. If we stop consuming, or cut back on consuming, there is panic, because our economy demands we continue to spend spend spend, consume consume consume. Rather than having a few pairs of good quality shoes, we have to have 50 pairs of things that are easier and cheaper to replace than repair. Our closets have to be bigger and bigger because we need so many clothes.

Storage rental units are successful businesses because we have so much stuff that it can't even live with us anymore - we have to store it off our own property. Hoarding is a widespread, serious mental condition.

Products are made with planned obsolescence, so that we desire to discard something that is still in working order in favor of purchasing newer, better. Other products are made cheaply so that things like your toaster, your vacuum, your refridgerator - things that used to be pricier but lasted a long time - are simply trashed and replaced. Computers, cell phones... everything. 

The article also gets into the environmental crisis of raising livestock for food. Yes, this is a problem. This is, however, where I veer off the article. The problem isn't that we eat meat. The problem is that there are too many of us eating too much meat and wasting even more. But that part gets left out, because it's easier to criticize omnivores loudly than to whisper about population. 

Yes, the richest among humanity consume too much. Of everything. Would this be a problem if population were not so out of control? If the population were much smaller, none of this would be an issue. Mass-production would not be necessary. More stuff cheap would not be desirable. Global economy, so-called progress, GDP, how are these things improving our life here on Earth? 

The struggle to get people to consume less just isn't working. Cutting back on the population, everywhere, all over, is the only hope we have. If we don't do it ourselves, the planet WILL do it for us, and that will not be pretty. Sure, the richest among us will be OK for awhile, but the mass suffering everywhere else? Why is it OK to face that, rather than have the discussion about curtailing population before that happens?

I'd seriously like an answer to that.