This was originally published as a schmoozeletter email in 2021:
Someone recently shared an interesting thought with me.
She was saying that she's one of these people who likes to help others, but like, loudly.
For example, if she's going to the supermarket, she'll often post on her block's whatsapp chat, asking if anyone wants anything picked up while she's there.
She explained:
"I know it's a nice thing to do. But if I'm being honest, a big reason I do that sort of thing is not so much because I'm this wonderful person, as much as it's for more shallow reasons. Like, I want to be perceived as a great friend and neighbor. Or maybe to stroke my own ego of what a thoughtful person I am. And maybe even that I want to build up good will and favors, in case I ever need to ask them to do stuff for me. So when I really analyze it, even my acts of kindness are selfishly motivated. And then I feel like a phony- trying to come off as so giving, when that's not really the whole story."
I think a lot of morally honest people can get down on themselves in this way:
Criticizing ourselves for doing good things for not necessarily the most altruistic reasons.
We discussed the possibility that even if those are some of the more ulterior motivators:
1. Her neighbors still benefit from her offer
2. Doing a good thing for a partially self-serving reason isn't that terrible, if it benefits the other people (and isn't leveraged to manipulate).
3. Maybe the fact that she wants to "stroke her own ego" or "create an image of kind neighbor" by doing thoughtful things is still an indication that she is striving to be that person, even if not only entirely altruistically. Feeling good about oneself though doing good things for others is definitely not the worst kind of dopamine hit.
4. Wanting to build friendship by doing for others, even if it's partially so it becomes ok to ask favors back, is actually a normal part of how relationships work. Yes, we don't want it to always feel like keeping an exact score, "tit for tat" (what a weird expression- what does that mean anyway?) But one-way relationship are no fun; healthy people don't want to chronically mooch off others, or feel used by them. It feels good to give, and it's important to be able to reach out for help sometimes.
Humans are complex; we're rarely linear in our reasoning and motivation. Often there are multiple thoughts, feelings, and reasons for why we do what we do, and some can feel more noble than others. But ultimately, the goal is to self actualize, to be and become constantly improving versions of ourselves by practicing actions that express our values. (Or at least that's one possible goal; you can have whatever goals you want; I'm not the boss of you.)
In this week's Torah portion, it describes the Ark of the Covenant as being comprised of three nesting boxes, gold inside wood, inside gold. As a kid, I learned that the purpose of the inner gold box was to symbolize the message of being "inside like the outside" - someone who is sincere through and through- if the outer presentation was gold, there should be gold on the inside too; not just wood: not phony, not hypocritical, just consistent and true.
But then I remember thinking: "If that's the case, then why have the wood box at all? Just have one thick gold box. Or three. Or maybe like a solid gold cube. This gold-wood-gold thing sort of seems like gold plated all around."
So I had this idea for a potential explanation:
We each have a deep inner self, a soul that is pure and idealistic. We start out wanting to be as good as we can. (That's the inner gold box.)
We also seek to express ourselves and connect to others in behavioral ways that reflect well on us and earn us good relationships and reputations. (That's the outer gold box.)
How we aspire at our deepest spiritual levels and how we behave when we want to see ourselves that way, often match up in theory.
Where it gets messy, is the process in between. All the thoughts, feelings, doubts, words, and dueling motivations that go between our core goodness and our outer behavioral expression, that's where the struggle takes places. That's the wooden box.
The Hebrew word for wood is the same as the word for tree, and is related to the Hebrew word for ideas and advice. (Etz/ etzah.)
Maybe this is because the way we grow is like trees (to which humans are compared in the Torah:
"Man is like the tree of the field").
Starting from a little seed in the dirt, an idea germinates, strengthens, pushes upward, defying the natural gravitational pulls of ego, lust, and inertia. It grows taller, higher, bolder. Then it blossoms and produces, flowers, fruit, and branches- beauty, nourishment, and building: materials for human growth.
All that happens in the middle box: the messy emotional and intellectual processes between the spiritual and behavioral. It's not as shiny or fancy as the gold, but it's organic, and it's where the development happens.
When we act in ways that, even imperfectly, reflect our inner goals and values about who we really want to be, that's the outer gold actions matching the inner gold soul.
As the Talmud says (although I'm paraphrasing a little here):
"People should motivate themselves to doing noble things, even for the 'wrong reasons,' because we're affected and redefined by our actions. So eventually we can become habituated to our own moral behavior, and it becomes second nature, in both deed and character."
Basically, practicing the role of who we want to be, from wherever we begin, is the process of refining the self, and actually becoming so.
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