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selfishness and reclamation

to those who have given all of their lives to others

i think i need to be more selfish. it is overwhelmingly difficult for me to fathom a world where i do not sacrifice parts or all of myself to people that need it more than me. for so long, it is all i have ever known. selflessness is a virtue, and being selfish puts others at risk - this is something i’ve heard all my life, and seen to an extent. to sacrifice myself for the collective good of others is to be applauded, and i often do so with a smile on my face. but lately, i have perceived a difference between sacrificing myself for others with a smile on my face and genuinely wanting to help others because i want to. the smile, as it turns out, is also in service of those i sacrifice myself for. i don’t want anyone to worry that i don’t want to do this, even if it’s true.

but for people whose entire self is selflessness, is it a virtue to be nothing but a servant? is it strength to be formless? is it noble to declare another’s life above your own?

in fact, i think that the pursuit of selflessness is only suited for those who plunder the world without a second thought. but to hoard and plunder and rob is not the instinct of most people in this world. by default, we are already people that care about others. and to actively tear chunks of our flesh away to feed the hungry proves that we are slaves to the feeling of being needed.

i no longer wish to be selfless. selflessness as it applies to me just means that i am no person of my own. i have no wants, no desires, no dreams, no needs. i am a docile lamb that does not scream when they sacrifice me at the altar. i will smile as they slit my throat and burn my entrails, as i am fulfilling my purpose and duty. this is the reason, they told me, that i was born. i was born to make other people happy. i was not born with a soul of my own.

what does it mean to reach out and take what is mine? what is mine? what is mine at all? is the world mine? the grass underneath my feet? the sky? the mountains in the distance? is it okay for it to be mine? does it have to belong to me only? can i share the earth with my brethren? is it still mine? does anything belong to me inherently? is it only mine because i want it? is it only mine because i grew it? because i cultivated it? because it appeared in my lap? because it was given to me? what does it mean for anything to be mine?

it does not sit well with me for things to truly be mine and mine alone. even my beloved wife, though i use the possessive “my” and love her more than anything in this world, is not mine alone. it belongs to the world and whoever it chooses to sit with, eat with, play with, drink with, smoke cigarettes with. perhaps what is mine also belongs to everyone else. though it belongs to some, they may not realize that, and do not claim it as theirs. my dreams are of the world, and it is everyone’s right to dream, and all that i need i believe others should have.

but i am okay with me being myself. to be a person named rainy and not to be described with anything more. words of praise and admiration and admonishment may come my way, but all attempts to put people into words is unfortunately more reductive than i would like. i am so much more than anything that people may say about me, and so are you.

perhaps to be is to want. perhaps the quality of my being is determined by the things i want and my agency and ability to make them happen. perhaps it is more important than ever to figure out whether the things i want are truly the things i want, or if they are things that i have been told to want. perhaps i should try my best to only do the things i want to do, and the things that i want to do with unwavering conviction is who i am. perhaps the things that i don’t want to do is also who i am. and perhaps when i do things, over and over again, that i don’t want to do, i alienate my soul from my mind and my sense of self fades away. perhaps i am an animal that follows her every desire to its logical end. perhaps i would be happier that way.

what a contrived idea, that humans are in any way better than animals because they do not succumb to their desires. even sillier is the notion that this was ever true at all. are humans, like animals, not driven by desire? is the ability to wake up at 5 am every day to doggedly work towards a vague notion of self improvement that of a human or that of a robot optimized for performance? what is the metric by which you are improving? who made it? is it what you want?

it was a herculean effort to break away from the things that i was told to want, and to figure out the things i actually wanted. i was told to want stability over passion, money over love, career over happiness. i was told to be selfless for others, and to suppress all my desires so that others could fulfill theirs. perhaps i was always a woman if this is how they thought to raise me. was i ever to be anything but a lamb? was my life ever meant to be anything but a dogged pursuit to be the perfect tool for someone else? one that does not cry, one that does not break, one that will bend over backwards, one that will change to fulfill new purposes, one that is ever learning to better serve its purpose, one that does not hurt nor show any of it to anyone else?

funny that i know plenty of men and women that were raised to be tools, just like i was. men that are expected to provide without having their needs fulfilled, and women that are expected to live in subservience to another. all that do nothing but work in the service of another are ultimately tools, and it is important to be docile and quiet when they slit our throats as to not cause any distress to our killers. the only people who are allowed to want, i’ve learned, are those with desires so grand they would burn the world to the ground for them. the people who have simple desires that do not cannibalize others are crushed in the hydraulic press. the steel from our bodies is melted down and made into a tool in the service of someone’s dream to extract all the wealth they possibly can from a weak country rich in minerals.

and perhaps the answer is to grow our desires to not be outshined by those with a penchant for murder. perhaps our paths and vision must be grand, or grander, than those with monopolies, if we want to build a new world. it is not that i should resist my desires because they are tempting - if the things i want are righteous, then should i not do everything in my power to achieve them? maybe the people that spoke about resisting their desires as a virtue were just people with really fucked up desires. my desire is not to rape or harm or hurt or kill or steal. my desire is to grow and love and help people do the same. it is incredulous to me that some christians still operate on the idea that the threat of hell is the only thing that stops them from harming others. it is even more incredulous that they believe that everyone else has these desires. and still, it is even more incredulous that their concept of desire itself is rooted in this, and that there was no room to distinguish between a desire to love and a desire to hurt. perhaps we should stop basing our morality and ideologies off of evil pedophiles from a thousand years ago.

there is so much in this world to learn, but there is seemingly even more to unlearn. my mind is a tangled web of indoctrination and a struggle between the things i believe and the things i was taught. i’ve never realized that my entire life has been a compromise. to compromise between what i want and what i need will be a never-ending struggle, but i feel as though i have spent far too much time compromising between what i want and what someone else wants. as i am, what is my life but a series of decisions other people have made for me?

perhaps to be a fully realized person, i need to achieve everything i want now. and when i do that, my dreams can be grander, and grander, and yet ever grander. when i look back, i saw that the amorphous blob that was my personality, in years past, had taken shape through decades of hammering it against steel. a shape unique to me. my accomplishments shaped by my experiences, which were shaped by my desires, which i discovered because my soul yearned to be something, anything more than it was told it was allowed to be.

to be anyone, i need to be someone. and to be someone, i need to live my life according to my desires. i no longer want to be selfless. i no longer want to live my life in the service of another at the expense of my own dreams. i want to be of my own, even if it means that i am constantly in flux, ever-changing, beholden to nothing and no one but my own goals. i want my life to be something that i wake up and choose every single day, and every decision i make to be one that i am not forced to make, but choose to. every kiss on her forehead is a choice i make. perhaps the trail i leave in my wake is a sign of my growth, and the friends i leave behind walk a different path or stay in the same place i met them, year after year.

it is a shame to outgrow those you held dear, but there is little fulfillment to be had in a mismatched friendship where you are no longer aligned. when i was younger, i was a nomad and never felt like i had anywhere to call home. over and over again, new friends would become old news, and i was afraid that no one could ever be enough for me, and that i want for more than anyone could ever give. i realize that i was quickly changing, and others were not. it was no fault of theirs, or my own - many friends are people whose paths briefly intersect with mine, and not ones who walk by my side the whole time.

the life i lead is lonely by design, but not by intent. i yearn for people to walk with me, with paths and goals and dreams of their own that they work to actualize. i love every moment of their company. much to my chagrin, i love growth more than i love the company. perhaps my deepest wish is to grow and be with others that are also growing in the same ways that i am.

sometimes, i wish desperately to be able to settle for less. my life would be so much simpler if i wanted for nothing, if i was a docile lamb with no desires of my own. to have my fire not extinguished but never present in the first place. with no light in my eyes nor the desire to change that.

but i am alive, and i am ravenous. and there is nothing i love more than to be more than i am.