The Heart of Selfishness

[Joshe]

Selfishness is the refusal to recognize and engage the legitimacy of another person’s center of value, while insisting that others continually engage yours.

Everyone has a center

Each of us organizes life around certain values, projects, or identities - what I’ll call our center. For one person it might be knitting. For another, sports. For others, maybe it's political debate, career, or parenting.

We don’t just care about these things privately. We want others to notice them, engage them, and validate them. That’s the natural bias: “meet me where I live.”

When two people interact, the real negotiation is not over “truth” or “reality,” but over whose center deserves attention right now.

This is why a grandma wants you to admire her knitting, or why a sports fan wants you to talk about last night’s game. They don’t just want you to acknowledge the facts - they want you to spend your scarce attention budget on their value system.

Conflict emerges from competing value functions.

• Default bias: Each person assumes their center should be the reference point.
• When another person doesn’t engage that center, it feels like neglect, dismissal, or disrespect.
• The clash isn’t over what’s real, but over whose values get airtime.

This explains why couples fight over what look like trivial things: the dishes, a hobby, a preference. The triviality masks the real wound: “You didn’t engage my center. You didn’t treat what matters to me as mattering.”

You can see this in children. I have a nephew who has come to realize that the world isn't going to be so selfless as to remain in his center - if they even show up, and he's become nihilistic at the age of 12 because of this. 

That's just one way to cope with this truth. The healthy way is to acknowledge and accept it. If you can do that without bitterness, you gain in strength and sovereignty. But this is no easy thing to do because our response to it is formed unconsciously in childhood. 

Maybe this post could also be renamed to "The Heart of Neediness". 

Edited August 21 by Joshe

[Hojo]

You could counter this and reverse it and it works the opposite way. Selfishness is wanting someone to disengage their center to fit yours.

Ie grandmas being selfish that I should care about her knitting when I don't.

Edited August 21 by Hojo

[Joshe]

1 minute ago, Hojo said:

You could counter this and reverse it and it works the opposite way. Selfishness is wanting someone to disengage their center to fit yours.

That is the very idea! Maybe I didn't communicate well. 

[Hojo]

@Joshe Does that mean that expecting anyone to react in a way you want is selfish?

Who is selfish in this situation, timmy is playing video games Timmy says come watch me play grandma says no. According to that they are both selfish.

If grandma does watch timmy is selfish, if grandma watches for 10 minutes and leaves they are both selfish.

With this theory the only way to not be selfish is to bow down to whatever anyone asks you to do your whole life. Up to and including sucking on the maggot infested wound of a homeless man for no reason besides he asks you.

Edited August 21 by Hojo

[Joshe]

7 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Joshe does that mean that expecting anyone to react in a way you want is selfish?

Who is selfish in this situation, timmy is playing video games Timmy says come watch me play grandma grandma says no. According to that they are both selfish.

Lol, yes exactly. It's not about either of them being selfish, as it's natural. It's about how Timmy deals with it. He should not expect others to come to his center anytime he wants. He should understand they have a center as well. But the Grandma should have a healthy balance, as should Timmy, because that's the foundation of a healthy relationship, IMO. 

Edited August 21 by Joshe