Is Love Selfish? -For those out there that are creative thinkers

[Tyrien]

You're missing the point entirely. Everyone is always selfish in some way or another. Every action we take is to benefit ourself - whether or not we choose to acknowledge that.

Every situation can be interpreted as "selfish", but the problem you seem to have with accepting that is the stigma behind the word. We hear the word tossed around so often with negative connotations its become extremely difficult to accept that describing one as selfish can be anything but a negative trait to their character.

The question was if Love was selfish or not, and it is. We love because it makes us happy, because we all have a deep seeded fear of loss. As humans we hate to lose things, we hate to have things taken away from us, we hate to break social connections.

We fight for love, or desire love because it makes us happy. There's nothing wrong with that, but the fact remains that we choose to take actions that benefit the ones we love because our loved one's happiness and continued attachment translates into our own happiness. It cycles back to our own gain; mental self preservation.

Love is selfish in the literal sense.

This isn't consciously selfish though. This is a human survival instinct. Since we can safely agree that the extreme majority of us, as humans, instinctively all desire companionship or fear loss, then we can exempt this behavior when asking if love is selfish in practice.

[iPhantom]

Originally Posted by Tyrien

We fight for love, or desire love because it makes us happy. There's nothing wrong with that, but the fact remains that we choose to take actions that benefit the ones we love because our loved one's happiness and continued attachment translates into our own happiness. It cycles back to our own gain; mental self preservation.

Exactly. Never said the otherwise. But that happens unconsciously. Love cannot be selfish unless your primary concern is to enjoy being happy by yourself, rather than care for your partner. Love is altruism, not selfishness.

And no your "Everyone is always selfish in some way or another." statement is wrong, you're not selfish just because you gain something out of an action. You're selfish only if your main concern is to benefit just for yourself, regardless of what happens to others. Keep this in mind.

I'll continue argue tomorrow, but you seem to misunderstand what is selfish or not.

[Tyrien]

Originally Posted by iPhantom

Exactly. Never said the otherwise. But that happens unconsciously. Love cannot be selfish unless your primary concern is to enjoy being happy by yourself, rather than care for your partner. Love is altruism, not selfishness.

And no your "Everyone is always selfish in some way or another." statement is wrong, you're not selfish just because you gain something out of an action. You're selfish only if your main concern is to benefit just for yourself, regardless of what happens to others. Keep this in mind.

I'll continue argue tomorrow, but you seem to misunderstand what is selfish or not.

You failed to understand then. When taken in a literal sense every action we do in our lives is to gain a specific result - the result we want.

There's two different ways we're looking at this here. You're adamant that being selfish in the practical sense is the only way of being selfish. What you quoted was me referring to selfishness in the literal sense.

[JasonTakeshi]

Originally Posted by iPhantom

Your way of thinking is so funny, haha.

1. You brought me an ancient definition of a word. big deal, the real deal is today. The definition of selfishness tday, as I gave it is right. If you want to call something slefish, use that definition or don't clal it selfish because it isn't.

2. Where there is altrusim, there is no selfishness. =D think a bit of that and your big contradiction.

3. I don't know what else to tell you. You donate for the people, not to make yourself happy. You might be happy after you do it but you might not change at all. But that doesn't even matter. The main reason you donated was to help others. This is altruism, not selfishness.

4. Same deal with the child. You're a big moron thinking a parent would do it for themselves before doing it for their child. Altruism agian here, not selfishness.

5. Yeah, I looked around and there's only you making such odd explanations about something as clear as this.

Is this all what you got?

Disappointing.

[manganimefan227]

That's what she said!

[JasonTakeshi]

Originally Posted by manganimefan227

That's what she said!

YouTube - Two Camels One Car (No profanity)

That's what you were looking for?

[manganimefan227]

No . . .Why would I be?

[iPhantom]

Originally Posted by Tyrien

You failed to understand then. When taken in a literal sense every action we do in our lives is to gain a specific result - the result we want.

lol

And what did I say?

A little bit of selfishness in ever action doesn't make enough for the altruism which is the primary reason of the action. Love is not selfish. EOD.

[Tyrien]

Originally Posted by iPhantom

lol

And what did I say?

A little bit of selfishness in ever action doesn't make enough for the altruism which is the primary reason of the action. Love is not selfish. EOD.

I'm confused why you're proving yourself incapable of reading what I wrote?

Let me simplify this.

Literal sense - we're all selfish.

Practical sense - love is not selfish.

It's almost as if you only read that original paragraph of mine you quoted; ignoring the rest of the post.

[iPhantom]

Originally Posted by Tyrien

Literal sense - we're all selfish.

How did you bring that conclusion though. You're the one making it confusing. You say 'we love because it makes us happy', but that is not true, not even in literal sense.

However there is no love without happiness, that is true, because it would not be love.

Like I said, if you count 'happiness' as being selfish, there is a bit of it on many actions we do, thus us being a bit selfish, but what defines if we're selfish or not is the primary reason we did that action. Literally or practically, it is the same way.