[quote=KSMountain]Wow. I’d have to say this thread has been hijacked.
The “life is only about my own mind and body and the stories I can tell about it” approach is kinda depressing to me.
If you do good for someone else, true, *you* can only experience your perception of your good work, but in fact, if you really helped that person, then their life is changed and you have indeed affected something external to yourself.
Over the course of a life you may be able to affect many many others positively…
I guess that would be one strategy for a life.
Another might be pure hedonism. Why not.
Equally valid approaches I guess. Although given we live in an interconnected society, I guess some approaches are more beneficial to the “tribe” than others…[/quote]
Suggesting that hedonism and charity are mutually exclusive is absurd. I get immense pleasure from helping others. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother. (Of course, I also get pleasure from planning the demise of certain others when the opportunity arises – but I digress.) But, regardless of whether or not I’ve “affected something external to myself,” it’s only my perception of it that really matters. Because when I die, I won’t perceive anything.
