One of the Best Secrets of Life

One of the Best Secrets of Life

 Ayn Rand or a Six-Year-Old Boy as a Hero

Alex Greene

Dear Reader,

As a young man, I was a devotee of Ayn Rand.

Reading her philosophical novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead strengthened my belief in free markets, individual liberty, personal integrity, and the inspirational power of great art.

In particular, Rand’s radical independence–she swore that she would never live her life for the sake of another person–seemed downright heroic.

It will come as no surprise, however, that Rand was childless. She also had a reputation for being ill-tempered and egotistical. And she bore grudges. (“She wanted me dead,” her former paramour Nathaniel Branden told me over dinner one night.)

Hmm.  Perhaps there are other heroes…better ones.

In Soul Food, Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman tell the story of an Illinois family whose daughter became ill and was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease.

A search went out for a compatible blood donor but none could be found. Then it was discovered that her six-year-old brother shared her blood type. The boy’s mother and doctor sat down with him to ask if he would be willing to donate blood to save the life of his sister.

To their surprise, he did not answer right away. He needed some time to think about it. After a few days, he came back to his mother and announced he would do it.

As Kornfield and Feldman write, “The following day the doctor brought both children to his clinic and placed them on cots next to each other. He wanted them to see how one was helping the other. First he drew a half pint of blood from the young boy’s arm. Then he moved it over to his sister’s cot and inserted the needle so her brother could see the effect. In a few minutes color began to pour back into her cheeks.

Then the boy motioned for the doctor to come over. He wanted to ask a question, very quietly. 

‘Will I start to die right away?’ he asked. 

You see, when he had been asked to donate his blood to save his sister’s life, his six-year-old mind understood the process literally.”

He believed he was trading his life for his sister’s. No wonder he needed a few days to mull it over.

In today’s society, selflessness is often regarded as naïive or idealistic, an outdated concept promoted by busybodies and do-gooders.

But those who focus solely on themselves have their own set of problems. For starters, many of them don’t look terribly happy.

Psychologist Martin Seligman writes that “one of the major symptoms of depression is self-absorption. The depressed person thinks about how she feels a great deal, excessively so… When she detects sadness, she ruminates about it, projecting it into the future and across all her activities, and this in turn increases her sadness.”

This is generally beyond the control of someone clinically depressed. Yet cognitive therapists have found that a regimen of goal setting and thought modification is more effective with some patients than anti-depressants. The objective is to get the patient looking upward and outward rather than obsessively inward.

Not a bad idea for the rest of us, either. As author Henry Miller said, “Develop interest in life as you see it, in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”

This is no easy task.  From infancy we are programmed to think about our wants, our needs, our feelings, our objectives.

This is natural. But it can also be problematic–and embarrassing. When we get all wrapped up in ourselves, we make a pretty small package. We also risk becoming a crashing bore.

Ambrose Bierce captured this sentiment perfectly when he defined an egotist as “a person of low taste–more interested in himself than me.”

To a certain extent, we are all held captive by our egos. Yet the sages have always taught us how to break free:

Taoism suggests we extend our help without seeking reward. Buddha said that contentment is found in a generous heart, kind speech and a life of service and compassion. The New Testament tells us it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Many secular philosophers agree. In Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett writes:

“One of the best secrets of life: let your self go. If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size…  for if you can stay centered, and engaged, you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person.”

 

Carpe Diem,

Alex