Back to my original point. Being selfish. Is it bad? is it ok? is it even, dare I say it, good? Here's the thing. I don't think anybody is not selfish. But the word has such a bad connotation and I don't know of another, better word. In most people's mind, when you say selfish, they equate this to mean "So you just want what you want and you don't care about anybody else". Somewhere along the way I learned that this is what selfish means. And if I therefore do anything strictly for myself, then I am selfish, and that this is bad. So I started to wonder, what are unselfish things? What can I do to be unselfish, and to help people, especially those I care about the most? I have always cared about people and about humanity as a whole and about animals and this earth. I've always been concerned with human rights, the plight of the poor, evil people harming innocents, etc etc. Now comes the contradiction in my mind. I still wanted to make money, have a comfortable life, buy things, enjoy my own hobbies, eat what I like, etc. But I've always been willing to share. Many of those things are not fun without someone to do it with. But I've also always known I could probably do more for other people and the world. I could even devote my life to it, and give away most of what I have (time, money, etc) and that would be unselfish and seen as a good thing. Except I don't. Yes I offer to help people here and there. Whenever I see somebody stranded on the road I feel a pang to stop and help (and sometimes I do). The problem I have is in knowing where the balance is. But ultimately I have this stigma in my mind that if I do anything at all for myself, that I am a bad selfish person. I let things get away from me over the last 25 years. I barely do anything for myself anymore. I almost never spend any money on anything for myself (wife handles all finances). I would have to make a point of it, and essentially ask for permission because money is always tight. And I feel guilty because you know, food, mortgage and kids needs are just more important. So I don't.

Here is something I have a hard time with. And it holds in my head as a great contradiction that makes me crazy and therefore doubt myself, constantly. I said this once, early in my relationship with my wife. It was a philosophical point that I felt worth discussion. Only she doesn't really like to talk about things like this (or science, or tech, or most of the things I like). The comment was this: People are ultimately selfish. She took this as me saying that I was selfish, which is totally different. I was not able to articulate clearly what I meant, nor did I have time to really elaborate. Its only been in recent years that I've been able to really think it through, but we are at the point where she basically doesn't care what I have to say about anything anymore. For decades I have been just suppressing my thoughts, my beliefs, etc because few people were interested in hearing or discussing it, prime among them, my wife. She now thinks I have never communicated with her out of some kind of intentional disrespect or controlling behavior when really I just felt like I was never heard, or when I was heard, it just upset her. I think this is just the "masking" behavior. So I just didn't talk at all. That of course is on top of the fact that I just experience social anxiety anyway. I would say sometimes I just dont have anything to talk about, but thats not really true. I do. My brain is flood of thoughts all the time. I just control the flow so it doesnt drown people. Now we are in a state where she doesn't want to hear me speak at all. Ever. So I just use "yellow rocking" which is to speak as little as possible, but not be obviously "short" which is more like grey rocking. Just simple, straight answers. Well, I didn't even get to the main point. I will have to make another post then.