Hedonistic Altruism

This has nothing to do with writing or anything except perhaps human nature.

After church today they had the Sunday School picnic which is an excuse to bring dishes and lay on a big feed and eat outside whilst hanging around with friends. This put us on the road home a lot later than usual.

My wife, Mary, and I saw a kid pushing a Honda Spree northbound as I was headed southbound.

As you may know, I ride a Honda Metro on beautiful summer days like today. My brother rides a Puch Maxi that dates from the '70s. So, I whipped the van around and pulled alongside the kid. "Can we help?" I feel a sort of kinship to all moped and scooter riders.

The kid turned out to be a teenaged girl of short stature and a butch haircut.

She said yes and I tried unsuccessfully to start the scooter. It fired a couple times, but I couldn't get it to catch. The next time the battery gave up the ghost. Besides, I didn't have any ether to spray into the carburetor.

She indicated that she was headed toward a friend's house who lived nearby.

Between Mary, the girl, and I we managed to manhandle the scooter into the back of my van. The only tricky bit was getting the stand to engage. Next time we'll put a scooter facing backwards, not forwards. We gently drove up to her friend's house careful not to tip over the scooter.

Having dropped off the girl and scooter at her friend's house, we bid her farewell and went home. I felt good. We'd helped a damsel in distress. Mary expressed how good it felt to help out. We made out way home basking in the warm glow of having done a good deed.

The Savior speaks of the Scribes and Pharisees who made a big show of their alms-giving and religious observance. He advised them to do good deeds in secret that they might be rewarded later publicly. Then he said of the hypocrites that they have their reward. I always understood this to refer to the praise of other men who witnessed their displays of piety.

Now I understand this a little differently.

I've been stuck on the side of the road before. And I've felt helpless in the face of non-cooperative machinery. It is not fun to push a dead scooter a mile or so home. So, I know it meant something to that girl when we stopped.

That made me feel good. It made me feel like a better person than I really am. And I could sense just a bit of admiration in Mary's voice when we were heading home. She thought I was a better person than I really am, too.

And that feels good, too.

This probably is nothing new to most of you. It's no secret that the high-profile altruists like Mother Theresa derive great pleasure from their acts of Christian love.

I don't think they are phonies like the Scribes and Pharisees, but I do think this pleasure is the bulk of their motivation.

The Savior was right. They have their reward, because I know for a fact that I have mine.

On Happiness And Writing

I watched a documentary called Happy last night and I agreed in part with it and I disagreed in part with it.

I don't think I become happier if I support some 3rd party's crusade to save the world. Granted, giving money to someone who is Doing Something Good is a great way to assuage your guilt for Doing Nothing, but I don't see this as necessary to happiness.

Ayn Rand would say that Altruism is a Bad Thing, because men and women are not sacrificial animals. This is in part true, but Ms. Rand failed to account for the fact that altruism makes the altruist feel good.

Karl Marx said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." If so then altruism-borne happiness is part of the high. (I always like it when I can juxtapose Marx and Rand.)

I've personally experienced the fact that I'm happier when I can "get outside myself." And altruism is one way to do that. Same goes for community. One may deny that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but one cannot deny the existence of the communities one associates oneself with.

My extended family, and my church aren't perfect but when we're getting along I get a warm fuzzy from the association. Same for the circle of friends I meet with because we share interests in writing, programming, technology, etc.

One the thing that really gives me a huge kick is getting something done. Sometimes that accomplishment comes at the end of a long, hard slog. Those times it is more like a feeling of relief. Like the first day after you've been sick and you feel good about feeling good. Or when you get a chance to put your feet up after you've been on them all day.

A bigger kick is accomplishment after I've had fun doing the work. Some times the joy is in the journey. Some times work is play. When you are writing there are times when the scene and the characters take charge: your fingers fly across the keyboard and prose pours onto the page. The ancients would pray to the muse and the Hebrews would say that they spirit of the LORD came upon skilled craftsmen. Today we term that state of mind "flow" and I am happiest when I am in a flow state of mind.

The employer is wise who can arrange for his workers to spend the majority of their working hours in a flow state. This explains why my writing suffers when my day job is most enjoyable, and why my writing gets so much better when I have to "pay my dues" in the rest of my life.

I spoke earlier of having a sustainable rhythm of writing. I've found that nothing disrupts my rhythm of writing more than having so much fun at work that I forget my work-in-progress. And nothing gets me back into that sustainable rhythm of writing than getting into a flow state while writing. Hemingway said that he always quit writing when he still had something more he could write. This kept him in the flow state right up to the moment he quit work, and it gave him an avenue to get back into the flow state when he resumed work the next day.