If I just happen to hurt people, especially those I love, real hard, why shouldn’t I just kill myself then?

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    I reject the premise of your question. Human judgment is inherently biased and cannot be implicitly trusted. I believe it is likely that you hurt people from time to time, as everyone causes such pain and injury from time to time. However, I distrust the idea that you cause nothing but pain. An absolute conclusion like that would require absolute, unequivocal, objective evidence to prove, and I have zero reason to suspect you are some sort of omnipotent being capable of acquiring such evidence.

    The most likely conclusion from the available evidence is that your ability to recognize your own value is somehow compromised. A rational course of action when you cannot trust your own senses is to reject those senses. If you can’t trust yourself to fairly evaluate your own actions, you can reverse the process. Identify an action that does not cause harm, but rather, helps someone, somewhere.

    For this exercise, it is important that the action be small. The smaller the better. You aren’t trying to save the world here; you are trying to recalibrate your ability to recognize the value of your actions. Any idiot can see the “good” in saving a baby from being torn apart by a rabid dog. Not everyone can see the good in picking up a piece of litter. Not everyone can see the good in kicking a rock off a sidewalk, so a kid doesn’t trip on it. Not everyone can see the good in pushing in a chair, or wiping the water off the counter in a public bathroom.

    Go perform a tiny, objectively good act, right now. The smaller the better. The least significant act you can possibly imagine.

    One of two things will happen: either you will see the tiny, positive value in that act and recognize that you don’t just cause harm; or you will not see that act as “good” (or “good enough”) and you will objectively know that your sense of personal value is not properly calibrated.