I'm proud that part of a public seminar I gave last fall “How Can Selfishness & Generosity Make Sense in a Woman’s Life?,” was published in a recent issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known:
Growing up, I wanted to think I was good, but I can’t remember being generous in any deep or steady way. I did have kind feelings for animals. And I helped my mother by setting the table (grudgingly) and generally behaving. But I liked being served, and got nearly everything I wanted in terms of toys, clothes, ballet and piano lessons, and lots of praise.
I liked school, and it was there I gave myself most: to learning. I remember wanting to be fair to words—spell them correctly, use them grammatically—and I loved to read. When we try to be fair to something, I later learned from Aesthetic Realism, we’re truly selfish, truly take care of ourselves.
However, I mainly felt the world was a harsh, competitive place I had to hide from and outwit. While I had friends and was fairly popular, I saw myself as superior to most people and had a self-centered, unjust way of seeing that made me cold to others’ feelings. Writes Eli Siegel:
“The chief reason for the winning out of selfishness so far is man’s feeling that he is accompanied by a world hostile to himself and which he has to defeat....Once we are clear that it is not sensible for us to fight the world the way we have, selfishness will have received a central blow.” [TRO 173]
In my first Aesthetic Realism consultation I was asked what I thought of the world, and my initial response was: “I don’t think about it.” I added: “I’m mostly concerned with myself”...Read more
