Dedicated to: Fernanda

Introduction.

Righteousness is a group of values that has been promoted again and again as a solution to all the irrational coups of violence that had occurred since the beginning of time. One of them, harmlessness is believed by many to be the best way to prevent violence is by being incapable of it.

It was not wrong. The ancients indeed stopped a lot of wars and unnecessary violence, but as I will argument in the course of this post, extreme righteousness, cannot be the answer. It has many troubles, paradoxes and situations where being the opposite, a *beast —*As the author Jordan Peterson insists— is indeed the best answer, not just for individual interest or power, but to a greater communal peace.

Cain and Abel.

The sons of Adam and Eve were two males, Abel and Cain. The former was a shepherd while the later was a farmer. Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and it pleased the Lord. Cain brought the gifts of the soil but the Lord was not pleased. Abel gifts were regarded but Cain did not.

Cain was angry, he was giving but he was not being regarded. He grew resentment, so his envy for his brother grew until he decided to take revenge at who were “hurting” him: his brother Abel and God itself. He took Abel to the field where he killed him.

When God noticed -or at least when he talked to Cain because it is probable he always knew what was happening- the absence of Abel he confronted Cain, receiving “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” cynic response.

God sentenced him, to wander in his lifetime, without being able to receive the grace of the soil and marked with a curse of “Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.”

Abel was capable of doing what is right, of putting the effort to please the Lord, but he was not capable of stopping Cain from taking his life. His goodness was not enough to survive the envy and resentment of his brother. Even by being in the side of God, the omnipotent, he did not guaranteed his survival, may not even his place in the afterlife -as the concept of heaven came later in the bible.

The biblical history of Cain and Abel may hide and contain many interesting teachings, but it shows that while you can indeed make the Lord a happy man, you must be conscious of your own vulnerability. Abel was indeed a sheep; a loyal and disciplined follower of righteousness that fell prey to the wolf of his brother.

When you serve a higher ideal you are prioritizing the survivorship of your idea before that of your life. Righteousness, with all its values and positive influence is no different from this.

“The purpose of thinking is to let our ideas die rather than use dying” as the mathematician Alfred North Whitehead said, but there are many doctrines which seem divine enough to justify for our death. They probably are worthy, but I think that many people have crossed a limit where their sacrifice for others, as noble as it may seem, can cause more trouble than good.

“Indefinite delayed gratification means no gratification” as Bill Perkins wrote in Die with zero, I think that even if our ideologies are more focused in giving —a reasonable idea considering before most of what we did was stealing and destroying— we are encountering more and more cases of people who just do not give too much but also do it for the wrong reasons and even the wrong people.

It is not just different actions, it is different you.

Giving to other people, no matter how little you give or how much do you have is always taken away something from you. It does not matter what it is, the point is that you are sacrificing your individual wealth -either if it is in time, money or health- so the others can have more.

Giving without expecting nothing in exchange is irrational, it is working more for having less, not only for you, but those around you. Allowing mistreatment -no matter the source- it is just making your life worse.

There is wisdom in accepting the suffering that life put on us, but I think is irrational to believe that being capable of withstand necessarily means that we must withstand. We do not only should actively seek circumstances in which we are well treated, we also should act against unfairness.

Failing to protect us, even if it is in the name of a noble cause is wrong. You become weaker, more brittle, less happy and less capable of actually doing right. The amount of sacrifice we bestow should always begin with a hierarchy in which our needs -not desires- are fulfilled first.

Taking care of oneself is not selfish, specially when you are someone on which people depend upon. Your safety, capability and well being is essential to those who count with you.

I am a big believer of choosing my own way of acting regardless what is the trouble. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” As Auschwitz and author Viktor Frankl wrote. Nonetheless I also believe that I have no responsibility to take care of others beyond my capability.

Learn to give from a healthy limitation. Focus on having enough so that when you actually should or want to gift you do not neglect yourself. Gifting without expecting an immediate return is maybe the only actual form of gifting, all other expectation is a cloaked trading.

Life is not that easy.

As Machiavelli wrote «Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.” Bear in mind that when you help someone you may not be truly aiding someone who needs help or you might quite plausibly just making a parasite–man life easier.

Actually, you might not even consider that is not the other person who needs help but you. As I mentioned earlier, giving something expecting something in return —either consciously or unconsciously— is actually trading, this does not mean is evil, but it may show that you are not truly helping, rather you are bargaining with someone to solve your problems.

This is particularly common in business, power and romantic interactions. Someone is “gifting” for another person, normally in an unrelated and unselfish area of personal life, it is a genuine and uncaring gift, nonetheless this offering is mentioned later, subtly enough to hide an obvious manipulation but directly enough to trigger your instinct to give back.

Either way, you and the person who you are helping are not absolved from malevolence, deception and masquerade. That an act is noble does not mean the people who do it are also noble. Identify this kind of attitudes in yourself and others. Consciousness of these tricks are your best weapon to avoid them.

But most importantly, if you are the one who is disguising dependence, weakness, interest and vengeance in acts of “genuine” care for others you indeed should stop being so “compassionate” because your wishes will never be fulfilled. It does not matter how much you disguise the pig as a sheep, it will never taste the same.

Conclusion.

The underlying rules are quite simple —that does not mean easy to accomplish— if your sacrifice is taking away from you value deeply there should be no reason to give that for nothing, especially if you find you have shortage of that resource to fulfill your needs.

You can choose 1 to 2 person or causes which you truly value and love beyond your life. This people are often your family and friends, not partners. To all other external expectations of generosity remember that you are under no obligation to give if you do not want or cannot do it.

Remember that you can help from a wide variety of resources. If you do not have time you can give money; if you do not have knowledge you can give legwork; if you do not have wisdom you can give emotional support. Be creative so you can help more.

Finally and maybe more importantly remember to care for you first. An unhealthy —or dead— you is uncapable of helping at all. It is brave and bold to give oneself to others, but it is smarter and more courageous to decide to stay in the suffering so you can help until the end of your days.

Thrive to be a bodhisattva —someone that has reached illumination but decides to delay it to help other suffering beings— rather than a martyr.

Note of the author (not important).

This post was really difficult to write. I encountered many paradoxes. How could all that ancient and modern wisdom be wrong? I had many examples in which both, misbehavior and righteousness, were the “correct” answers.

Nonetheless as I realized in this post these principles, as opposed as they seem are closely related to the other, as if they were brothers. Morality is often very malleable, even if there are consistent values that humanity has preserved through his history, our interpretations of when they make their presence is quite subjective.

For example, honesty is becoming more and more flexible in our modern days. You can effectively deceive someone with total consciousness of what you are doing and still be honest. They way we communicate and sell things are the best examples of this.

It is very difficult to draw a line on where someone is doing wrong or right. This problem has preserved through ages and it shows no desire to change its steady course of complexity.

This was my best attempt to reunite the opposites and to sort out the seeming paradoxes, I may be wrong, but it was my best.

Without nothing more to say, goodbye.

Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash