Altruism Exposed

Sometimes, to patch up an argument a lover will buy his mistress flowers. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, and yet I don't really like that idea. It seems to me that flowers are meant to be appreciated. If flowers are bought to buy out another's forgiveness there is some funky selfishness going on there. Not to mention it kind of ruins the expectation of flowers, and, in a way, cheapens "the moment." So, in my own mind I came to the conclusion that I'd only buy flowers on happy occasions, or as something to cheer her up. Now, on further consideration, I see that even these intentions are selfish. C. S. Lewis wrote a brief but insightful poem on selfishness, I reference this poem in my post Selfish Enjoyments. This poem basically suggests that we are selfish "through and through." I'm afraid I quite agree with this conclusion. We are. Whether flowers be bought to heal a relationship or encourage a relationship they are still bought to keep a relationship alive. Understandably one might think this a good thing, and in fact, it probably is. Relationships should not remain broken, they do need healing and mending. They are also supposed to be encouraged. I mean, it is important to try to make your partner happy, to see her smile and whatnot. Yet I think if we dig deep enough we will discover we want those relationships kept intact and healthy for our sakes more than for the sake of the other person or for the sake of the relationship itself. I think we want to make the other person happy because it serves to make us happy. We want to make the other person smile because we feel good, in a self-satisfied way, and we are the ones who enjoy the beauty of that smile (in a selfish way). Why this could be taken to all extremes of life. Even altruism. Altruism is another manifestation of selfishness. We dive in front of the oncoming truck to rescue someone perhaps because we care for the person about to be hurt, if so we do it not for the person but because we care about that person. Or perhaps we simply do it because we dream of looking heroic. Even the routine of day by day sacrifices, smaller but at the same time perhaps greater, are done out of selfish motives. We pay for our children's education because we don't want to look out of place and we take pride in their intelligence. The list could go on and on. Yet even though everything has an undercurrent of selfishness we often overlook it and are content to keep on believing the nicer things. These often motivate us to do more nice things. There are, or so it seems, good intentions linked to our bad (selfish) intentions. If we focus on the good intentions we are on the right track, yet I think it is good to once in a while perform an examination of ourselves (perhaps even our own souls) just to realize how depraved we are. Or are we really so very depraved? Don't we also see a lot of selfish motivation behind God's actions? Hedonism is a driving force behind not many of our actions but all of them. Could it be part of our divine interaction? Is this at least a part of what being made "in His image" means? For example, even in the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross (extreme altruism) there was a selfish motivation. No, He did not die because He needed us. He didn't even die just because He loved us. There's more to it. He created us and didn't want to lose us. He wanted us. Literally, wanted. That is a little selfish if you ask me.