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 Originally Posted by rpm
as much as i' m sure you'd rather i didnt do this, i' m still curious.
in light of your aforementioned personal moral framework (or lack of, however you want to describe it), where does the motivation to take time out of your life to mentor/help young people, as i've heard you talk about doing at least 2-3 times on this forum, come from? why are you interested in helping unknown troubled teens as you mentioned earlier in this AMA? how did they make "the team"?
not trying to pick flaws or inconsistencies in your worldview by the way, for the record. i find myself drifting more and more towards an amoral perspective as i get older, too. just curious as to how these plans/desires to help strangers are afforded by your worldview
I just want to say this first: It doesn't bother me a bit that you're asking me this. A few points to start with:
When I was younger, I got a whole lot of enjoyment out of helping people to improve who were showing me that they were worth the effort (I'll cover where this enjoyment comes from in a moment). I've been burned a lot by the vast majority of the people I have tried to help because I gave entirely too much credit to them and had lower standards for who I should invest a lot of time and effort into. In short, I did not have much of a vetting process. As I've gotten older, my vetting process has improved, and it's led to a lot less wasted time. For me to really go out of my way to help anyone at this point, I have to be able to trust them enough to feel comfortable with them being on "my team" which isn't particularly easy.
So about where that enjoyment comes from, I want to start out by saying that being amoral doesn't mean that you don't care about anyone. Instead, you probably have a more objective viewpoint and discriminate a bit more about who you invest your resources into. I don't have to get more out of the relationship than I get from the person I'm helping, but I'm definitely in a patriarch type of position when it comes to the group of people I consider "my team." That means I have to regulate my resources (time included) in a way that helps the team as a whole and not just whatever my ego gets out of helping random people.
It's easy to see that helping someone makes you feel good, and whether that's just your ego making you feel like you're a better person or what, I don't really know. It could be some sort of biological thing that's kicking into gear making me want to take on the provider/protector role.
A good example is a chick that I'm more or less taking care of right now. I've talked about it from time to time in the commune here and there, but she's basically a fairly talented chick with a ton of potential and a drive to work hard to improve. I helped her to get out of a really shitty living situation, and now she actually lives with myself and my girlfriend. I'm very much a father figure to her, and she's likely to be the closest thing to a daughter that I ever have because [oddly enough?] I don't want to have kids. I vetted this chick for more than a year to decide if I was going to actually put time and effort into her, though I didn't have any idea at the time that it would get to this point. I posted a cover of a song she did in the commune recently too (you should go listen to it heh).
I also think that at some point it's okay to admit that it's a game. You want to see if you can help someone get to level X who wouldn't get there by themselves. I don't think anything's wrong with that especially when it's mutually beneficial.
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