Is All Survival Selfish?

[soos_mite_ah]

I've been contemplating the relationship between survival and selfishness for the last few days. In a lot of cases, survival can be separate from selfishness imo because just because you do something that serves you doesn't mean you are taking advantage of others or demeaning them. For instance, recognizing your emotional needs and finding ways to meet them consciously, setting boundaries to ensure that you don't get into unhealthy situations that jeopardize your physical and emotional health, and finding a really grounding and conscious life purpose are all forms of survival yet they aren't selfish. I think it's important to be able to differentiate between survival and selfishness. Selfishness on the other hand is when someone tries to achieve survival in unconscious means. Now, I guess where things can get tricky is determining what is conscious survival and unconscious survival because you have a bias oriented towards the priorities of your current stage of development. I guess what I'm trying to say is that all selfishness is survival at work but all survival isn't selfishness. 

[Gesundheit]

It's whatever you imagine it to be.

If you imagine something and call it A, then imagine something else and call it B, then say that A is larger than B, that's up to you, really. I can create an infinite number of imaginary constructs and then sort them however I want.

Now, the question is this: By making this distinction, am I being selfish or just surviving? And who's to say?

[Aquarius]

Selfishness is not bad and doesn't mean you take "advantage" of others. What do you mean by taking advantage of others actually?

 

[Aquarius]

2 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

It's whatever you imagine it to be.

If you imagine something and call it A, then imagine something else and call it B, then say that A is larger than B, that's up to you, really. I can create an infinite number of imaginary constructs and then sort them however I want.

Now, the question is this: By making this distinction, am I being selfish or just surviving? And who's to say?

Some will say, it can be you, me, someone reads it, processes it, replies. It's on a computer, on a forum platform, you wrote it for whatever reason. What was it? <- Who will answer it?

Maybe not everything is survival. Things are infinite and self-regenerating. 

[soos_mite_ah]

6 minutes ago, Aquarius said:

What do you mean by taking advantage of others actually?

Interfere with other peoples agency to pursue happiness as well as their own survival through manipulation, degradation, deception, physically, emotionally, and mentally harming others, etc. 

[Aquarius]

Can you only survive through harming other beings? (asking this only in general)

Things can coexist, coinside//coincide

I'm only observing/analizing. 

[tatsumaru]

The paradigm of survival is not only selfish but in my opinion incorrect fundamentally.
First of all you can't survive. You will die. Therefore this idea that life is about survival is in my opinion materialistic bullshit.
That being said life is not without value. As the Oracle told Neo - We are all here to do what we are all here to do.
Therefore if you are dead you can't do what you are here to do, so not dying until you've given your gift to humanity is beneficial.
Taking care of one's own health is harmonious.
Taking care of one's own mind is harmonious.
Living in an environment that's conducive to your growth is harmonious.
However the ego thinks of survival in terms of hoarding, investing in weapons, bunkers, vicious dog breeds and what not and that's not harmonious.
That perpetuates the illusion of separation and is not expansive.

[soos_mite_ah]

16 minutes ago, tatsumaru said:

Taking care of one's own health is harmonious.
Taking care of one's own mind is harmonious.
Living in an environment that's conducive to your growth is harmonious.
However the ego thinks of survival in terms of hoarding, investing in weapons, bunkers, vicious dog breeds and what not and that's not harmonious.

Yeah, I'm trying to challenge that view of survival. I feel like survival often gets a bad connotation on this forum and gets painted as not conscious. Everything that you mentioned as being harmonious you can argue has to do with survival because you are doing those things for your benefit and so you aren't going to die before your time, physically or emotionally. 

And of course you can survive without harming other things. You can have symbiotic, win win, reciprocal relationships that takes the needs and the consent of multiple parties into consideration in order to create a situation that best serves everyone. 

I started thinking about this more after I looked into the dating section of this forum. I get the impression that a lot of people have a very cynical view of dating and relationships and write it off as "it's all survival" without differentiating between types of survival or seeing survival as a constructive thing that can aid growth. Instead, I sense this undertone of survival being this thing that only those with low consciousness seek after.

If anything, survival can be one of the biggest motivators of growth. When you realize the limitations of one system and way of thinking, it is in you best survival interests to expand further into a better system or way of thinking. Sometimes you need your ass to catch on fire to realize you need to move forward instead of sitting and stagnating in the same place all your life.

Of course that isn't the ideal model of growth but if one subconsciously does a cost benefit analysis, they might come to the conclusion that what they are doing isn't working and that they need to do better. Or they might feel fearful of changing causing their survival instincts go into self preservation mode and cause them to stay in a bad situation or worse they might backslide. Again, not the best model since growth, stagnation, or backlashes are all possible survival instincts in a difficult situation. Ideally, you would want to learn before you get put in a difficult situation and before your survival instincts play wheel of fortune on your prospects of growing as a person. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[Preety_India]

 

Survival can only be selfless when an abundant  system is handing you out everything without you having to compete for it. 

But in reality this does not happen. People have to compete with each other for survival. So when you get a house for yourself, that space is taken when someone else could have been accomodated there. But instead you competed with everyone to get that. 

In reality survival is selfish. It cannot be selfless. No matter whatever embellishments you apply to it. 

To think that survival is selfless is a dreamy projection on reality. 

 

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Preety_India

[soos_mite_ah]

2 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

In reality survival is selfish. It cannot be selfless. No matter whatever embellishments you apply to it. 

To think that survival is selfless is a dreamy projection on reality.

I wasn't trying to create that perception and I apologize if it came off that way. It wasn't my intention to idealize survival. Survival can be pretty gruesome but it doesn't have to be taken to that extremes. Not every act of survival is part of some zero sum game with a winner or loser. A lot of survival can be self care. 

My point is that survival can be a blanket statement for a lot of things, many of which are just fine or even healthy. We can't see survival as some monolith in black and white terms where you are selfish or selfless with nothing in between.

[Preety_India]

@soos_mite_ah depends how you define what self care means? 

You wanna apply powder to your face? You will need money to buy that powder?

How do you exactly get that money unless you have an inheritance? By working? 

How do you work? By applying for a job? 

Who applies for a job? Many people. 

Who gets that job? You. 

Why? Because you competed with them. 

What happens to them? They lose because you won. Or you won because they lost. 

Congrats you got the job and the money. Now you can do enough self care. 

You get the idea? 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Preety_India

[soos_mite_ah]

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

7 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

@soos_mite_ah depends how you define what self care means? 

 For instance, recognizing your emotional needs and finding ways to meet them consciously, setting boundaries to ensure that you don't get into unhealthy situations that jeopardize your physical and emotional health, and finding a really grounding and conscious life purpose are all forms of survival yet they aren't selfish.

Those are some examples. 

I get what you're talking about. The whole concept of no ethical consumption under capitalism. 

I know people tend to have a commodified view of self care being face masks and bath bombs, but it isn't limited to those things. Can we build more ethical systems so that we can meet our own needs without harming others, absolutely. But shaming ourselves in the meantime isn't going to get us anywhere. Plus not all competition is inherently bad or ruthless. Can it bring out ugly sides to people, absolutely, but that isn't the whole story. 

For example when setting boundaries, lets say you're in a conversation with a troll and this conversation isn't going anywhere and is driving you insane. You could set a boundary to quit engaging. That is survival because you're advocating for your self interest and mental health. It might look like a losing situation for the troll who on the surface wants someone to keep engaging because they get validation from the attention and controversy they are sparking. But in the long run, it helps the troll because you setting that boundary sends the message that this type of behavior unacceptable. If that happens enough times socially, they'll see it as a survival mechanism to adjust themselves in order to keep associating with others. You can also replace troll with small child throwing a tantrum as well lol.  

[Preety_India]

@soos_mite_ah I think what you are talking about is kinda emotional survival which is fine. I wouldn't really call it survival though. It's just self development and emotional growth and maturation. 

Whereas when you use the word as survival the human brain computes it as food, water, house, education, medical treatment and job. All of which are always in a framework of competition. 

If a hospital has only 10 beds and all 9 beds are occupied and the last bed is occupied by you, then the next patient loses his chance. 

Survival is a strong word. Better not to confuse it with other things. 

[soos_mite_ah]

1 minute ago, Preety_India said:

Whereas when you use the word as survival the human brain computes it as food, water, house, education, medical treatment and job. All of which are always in a framework of competition. 

If a hospital has only 10 beds and all 9 beds are occupied and the last bed is occupied by you, then the next patient loses his chance. 

Ok and what would we even do in that situation? Even if I give up my hospital bed to the next person and people keep doing that to each other, that won't fix the problem. The issue is more so systemic rather than a matter of conscious individual choice. Brings me back to this point: 

10 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Can we build more ethical systems so that we can meet our own needs without harming others, absolutely. But shaming ourselves in the meantime isn't going to get us anywhere.

Saying we are unconscious or that we are selfish because we are presented with a situation with limited options, all of which don't do much to produce win win situations can very easily lead to essentialism which then in turn makes us not want to system in the first place. After all, what's the point of fixing a system if all humans are inherently selfish and evil. The reason why I mention evil is not because I think survival is evil, but because I think a lot of people here tend to go in the train of thought where survival > selfishness > unconscious > bad/evil which then leads to a spiritual ego. 

9 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

@soos_mite_ah I think what you are talking about is kinda emotional survival which is fine. I wouldn't really call it survival though. It's just self development and emotional growth and maturation. 

I did explain an example of healthy emotional survival but emotional survival can be just as ruthless. Just think of all of the manipulative people who have this psychological need to get their egos stroked by exploiting others because they have a gaping hole when it comes to their need for acceptance for example. 

There are versions of emotional /physical /mental /spiritual survival that are constructive, destructive, and everything in between. It's important to differentiate those things instead of lumping them into one term. 

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Ok and what would we even do in that situation? Even if I give up my hospital bed to the next person and people keep doing that to each other, that won't fix the problem. The issue is more so systemic rather than a matter of conscious individual choice. Brings me back to this point: 

I didn't talk about fixing the problem. Survival cannot be fixed because we have limited resources. 

It's about demand and supply. If the supply far exceeds the demand, there would be no competition, yet this is not practically possible. It is only possible if humanity figures out a way for abundant supply. 

Till then survival will always incorporate competition. 

What I was saying is that this is the nature of survival. Solutions are still not figured out/ implemented. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

Also, in regards to relationships, I know it's best to get your needs met individually as much as possible in order to avoid codependence, but like with most things, can't people take that too far to the point where they have issues with being vulnerable and/or emotionally unavailable since they resorted to minimizing their needs as much as possible instead of meeting them in a constructive way. Like it's good to meet your own needs but just because you can meet your own needs doesn't mean that it would be bad if you let people help out. It could be a way of bringing immense value into your life even if the whole concept of needs is fundamentally survival based.  

[zeroISinfinity]

Survival exists only as long as I decide to play video game based on initial starting relative conditions. 

Once I decide to not play by those rules it ends for me.

 

[soos_mite_ah]

1 minute ago, Preety_India said:

I didn't talk about fixing the problem. Survival cannot be fixed because we have limited resources. 

You can also make the argument that the lack of abundance is an illusion because of hoarding wealth and the interests of groups that employ survival in an unhealthy manner. We have plenty of resources, a lot of it is in the matter or distributing it effectively. That's why I mentioned fixing the problem. 

While everyone is out for their own survival, people, even what we perceive as the worst of them, aren't inherently selfish.  There is only so much you can do when you are put in a situation and a system that incentivizes unethical behavior and doesn't give you an alternative. 

[Preety_India]

Just now, soos_mite_ah said:

You can also make the argument that the lack of abundance is an illusion because of hoarding wealth and the interests of groups that employ survival in an unhealthy manner. We have plenty of resources, a lot of it is in the matter or distributing it effectively. That's why I mentioned fixing the problem. 

This is debatable. The absolute amount of resources on planet earth is still largely unknown to humanity. 

Who is hoarding how much is also unknown. 

Equitable distribution is a fair step in the direction. But right now equal distribution is a pipe dream as long as lobbying of leaders  by wealthy groups exists. 

Elections are based on candidates that are largely bought by corporations. 

Removing money out of politics is a difficult step. 

As long as the rich stay in power, equality will always stay a pipe dream. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

3 minutes ago, zeroISinfinity said:

Survival exists only as long as I decide to play video game based on initial starting relative conditions. 

Once I decide to not play by those rules it ends for me.

I'm willing to bet that you have some survival desires and needs. And that's perfectly ok. Unless we're perfectly ok with throwing ourselves off a cliff tomorrow because it truly doesn't matter if we life or die, I think it's safe to say that we all have some type of survival instinct or agenda. Even then, some people see survival in death or in not playing this game because it preserves the idea of them. 

If we didn't have any survival instincts, we wouldn't even physically be here. There wouldn't be a point to do anything. We wouldn't want to do anything.