I loved Alanna
selflessly. Let us begin with the foregone conclusion that I did so rationally,
as well. If we entertain the possibility that I am capable of Unreason, then we
cannot PRECLUDE the possibility that I am incapable of self-reflection, in which
case any doubts of my own Rationality would be Absurd upon my part. Hence I am
obligated by Reason Itself to presume that I am Rational. And since my
condition can be extrapolated upon my readers, any similarly Rational Being
must presume, likewise, that I am Rational. At the very least: I should point
out that an IRRATIONAL Being would not be able to fathom Reason Itself to such
an extent as I have done in this first paragraph.
There are three
factors at play, each expressed as a dichotomy:
1.
Whether I am (and have been, owing to
my Nature) Rational or Irrational.
2.
Whether I loved her selfishly or
selflessly.
3.
Whether or not I had Power over the
situation.
The first variable has all
ready been made into a constant. The third was given by the logistics of the
situation. What remains is to determine the Quality of my Character, and that
was made clear by what I DID, as a Rational Being, with the Power provided BY
the situation in question.
A Selfish Man
(supposing he was likewise a Rational Man) in my Position would have behaved
differently than I did. Making himself the priority, he would not have
precluded the possibility that his fellows would have similar motives. He would
have exhausted, as is the Nature of Selfishness, every effort in order to secure
his own interests. He would have done everything in his power to corner the
proverbial market.
In short: Alanna
would have never met K., even if that would have meant risking harm to her, by
withholding from her the one resource that she centrally depended upon for her
mental health: Music. The harm would not have come from her consciousness of
being left out, but rather the RISK of SELF-harm would have been, ostensibly,
Greater.
A selfless man, by
contrast with a selfish man, (supposing that both are Rational) would have, in
my Position, not hesitated to invite Alanna to watch my concert, for he would
have had no conception of self-interest in doing so. If he was covetous of her,
it would have only been out of concern for her protection, part and parcel with
the favour provided for her well-being: the providence of Music for an ailing
but brilliant mind. Had I known that this could endanger her mind, by exposing
it to selfish agents, I would have promptly made the necessary sacrifices and
changes in arrangement that would have enabled me to provide for her by
relatively riskless means.
So it is established
that my love for Alanna was selfless. And this implies a Higher Priority
ascribed to it. Whereas a selfish man can allow for loss, for he alone would
suffer, a selfless man cannot, for Others would suffer. A selfish man can feign
Happiness in Apathy, and he can even feign Apathy with the ultimate intent of
Vengeance, turning his losses at one point into successes at a later point,
irrespective of the effect upon other people. Hence detachment is the way of
selfishness. But a SELFLESS man, paradoxically, or at least ironically, cannot
afford to be detached, for he must adhere to the A.B.C’s of altruistic living:
A.
Accountability,
B. Blamelessness,
and
C. Conscientiousness.
It is intolerable for
a Rational Man possessed of a Higher Form of Love (one capable of greater
Providence for Others) to lose the object of one’s love to a Lower Form of Love,
(one that predisposes all involved to disappointment and therefore to HARM) supposing
he is Rational and can make the deductions necessary to predict the Tragedy.
Neither should such a man ever suffer blame for the seemingly inevitable
collapse when in fact the EVITABLE Tragedy could have been prevented, and he is
only charged with doing everything in his power to heroically do so.
USUALLY: friendship
between Selfish and Selfless men is possible, granted that there is no extreme
of Martyr and Narcissist. There is no Martyr without a Narcissist, for such
self-sacrifice would not be necessary if dealing only with the Absurdities intrinsic
to moderate Selfishness. And in such an extreme conflict, the Martyr excels in
Virtue to the same extent as the Narcissist falls short of it; hence, even if
they arise mutually, the Martyr remains the Moral Superior and the most
Rational Choice.
A simply SELFISH man
is capable of making amends for a misdeed against a more altruistic person,
doing everything in his power to protect the Love Object in service to his
friend the Altruist, and doing so in such a way that the Altruist is respected
as a witness and authority on the Proper Course of Action. But a Narcissist is
incapable of such respect, for to him all Others are illusory. No motives exist
outside of one’s own motives and their enemies, to the Narcissist’s mind.
K. was a narcissist.
And his refusal to provide for Alanna’s needs led to the loss of her life.
Yet it was not alone.
For Alanna all so had a choice: to pursue the path of Reason and Health, or to
fall into Madness and Despair. Her tragic flaw was her OWN Selfishness. By allowing
her preference for a constructed fantasy, fabricated by the Narcissist, to take
precedence over the Reality of her True Lover, the Martyr, she not only
violated several moral principles, victimizing the Martyr unjustly (and beyond
the necessary scope of his martyrdom, that extent to which it was necessary for
him to contend with the Narcissist directly, upon discovery of the Narcissism),
but all so harming herself, damaging the Martyr most through that seemingly
INDIRECT means. The Martyr could only express this loss as personal suffering,
and the Narcissist could interpret it as self-interest (for it was merely an
abstract foe to him), but the Selfish Woman was TRULY at fault for failing to
see the Martyr’s Personal Suffering as an extension of her own Ill Health. This
was not because a Selfish Woman was incapable of understanding Altruism and the
pain of Empathy; it was rather because she PREFERRED the testimony of the
Narcissist, for totally self-interested aesthetic, hedonic, and egoic reasons on
her own part.
So Alanna’s Death was
ultimately Her Own Tragedy. But I make it a point for all to remember that she
was NOT a narcissist, for at times she was capable of confessing my Altruism,
without seeking any sort of apparent agenda by so doing, (but rather at the
conclusion of such a fruitless venture) and at other times she was even capable
of mirroring it. So she remains a victim of the Greatest Evil, which is that of
Narcissism. And K. remains singularly to blame for her Death.
Dm.A.A.
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