The creepiest thing just happened

As soon as I finished the last post, I logged onto myspace.  The girl (Caro) who let me spend the night in her apartment in Germany friended me.

 Coincidence?  I think not.

There is a terrible draft in my room

but I don’t know what to do about it.  If you call facilities for a draft, they place it on lowest priority and never show up.  I tried putting books in front of it, as well as putting my shamrock throw on my windowseat, but still I can feel the chill invading my fingers as I type at my desk.  I also need to get a pillow for my chair that I can tie to the back, because it’s quite an uncomfortable chair.  The good news is, it means I get to use my cool/nerdy USB-port warming typing gloves.  The bad news is that  I look like a fool.  Oh, and my houseshoes are at home, so my toes are quite chilled.  But mostly the bad news is that I look like a fool.

More good news is that I survived my first week *three days of classes.  It was rough.  More than once I was tempted to jump out my window-with-the-excellent-view.  But I’ve survived.  I only have about $250 more supplies to buy.  My camera should be here Saturday.  A bunch of my pictures arrived in the mail today. 

 Today we talked about altruistic behavior in my Honors class — about whether it actually exists, and whether it can be found in animals.  The debate automatically makes me think of Platoes Republic, in which in his hypothetical city, Socrates sets out to verbally experiment with whether altruism actually exists.  One of the points made is that altruism has to be done without a reward, and so one can’t reward someone who has done something good . . . because then they might simply be doing the act for the reward.  And so really, we should punish whomever committed the kindness, in order to make sure that they really mean it.  However, one also has to consider that doing something good for someone makes you feel good.  So does that good feeling, knowing you’re going to get that good feeling, mean your actions are no longer altruistic?

I think the definition of altruism needs to be made clearer.  If altruism is doing a favor or helping another without any reward at all, or if it is simply without the expectation of a reward, or if the reward must be physical (monetary) or spiritual (good deeds) or egoistic (praise).  If you are doing something kind simply to be doing something kind, then technically you aren’t being altruistic, either.  Because the point, if I’m not mistaken, of altruism is to do something kind for someone because you sympathize/empathize with them.  Because they’re a human and you care about their well-being and safety.  That means that martyrdom and self-sacrifice are not necessarily altruism.  That means that in some schools of thought, Jesus Christ is the only one who ever could be truly altruistic.

 But I disagree with that.  Yes, I agree that Jesus Christ embodies altruism (as long as one agrees that Jesus made his ultimate sacrifice willingly, and not because He had to).  However, I disagree that normal people cannot enact altruistic behavior.  Not all the time, no.  But it all comes down to intention, which is utterly impossible for anyone but ones self to know.  The girl inviting me to her apartment to spend the night when I was stranded in Achen, Germany because, as she said, she knew what it was like to be stranded overnight out in the cold.  At face value, that was altruism.  Maybe she had an ulterior motive.  But I left a thank you note and my e-mail address and she never contacted me, so clearly she didn’t want anything from.  Maybe she was lonely and looking for some good conversation — is that selfish? or symbiosis?  Nonetheless, her behavior to me appears altruistic.  The girl from London who is mailing me a signed program because mine got lost.  She doesn’t know me.  We’re never going to meet, and after this exchange, we will probably never talk again.  But she is sending it to me because she lost everything in a fire when she was my age, so she knows what it feels like to lose invaluable things.  She won’t let me pay her for shipping because she said she knows what it’s like to be a college student when money is tight.

There are good people in the world.  As a whole, the human population may be dreary and depressing, but individually, there are good, kind people out there who are willing to perform random acts of kindness, usually because they know what it feels like.  Some would argue that means it’s not altruistic.  The selfish motive is . . . I can’t find one.  To realize that you’ve suffered and you don’t want someone else to suffer as you have and so are willing to help them, I feel, is about as altruistic as it gets. 

BUT ENOUGH of this philosophical babbling.  For someone who thinks philosophy is a big waste of time, I really do enjoy psychology and the blurry line of ethics between them.  I think people are fascinating.  but I didn’t mean to go off on this when really I should be reading about ethics in chimpanzees right now.  So to make up for it, here is a picture of me with my gloves.  In case you doubted the dorkiness.

 

 BTW, have you ever clicked on the “hey y’all” up at the top?  I wrote that back in the summer.  It’s rather amusing.