Mosur
Mosur sat at the small eatery in the cathedral district again. It was past breakfast but before lunch so the place was empty save for himself and the owners. The owner was in the back of house with his wife getting ready for the small lunch crowd they would have from the cathedral. Quiet was good though.
I like talking to people. I have been doing a lot of that recently. It’s not often that I learn something, most of the things I talk about are not things that can have a right or wrong answer. I didn’t learn anything tonight either. I already knew it.
Selfish selflessness came up in conversation. I cannot seem to get it off my mind. What do those words mean together? Can you say them together or it is just an oxymoron.
To start at the beginning, innocence is something special. There is no one that is innocent. Truly innocent. We lose that as children in one way or another. How does it feel to be innocent, does anyone remember? Oddly enough I was asked if that is how it feels to be a priest. That’s not a question I can answer anymore, but I think the answer is no. My answer instead was to suggest that the closest thing anyone can get to innocence is through selfless action. Doing something good for no reason other than goodness of heart.
That is also a hard thing to describe.
Selfless...caring more for the needs and wishes of others than for one’s own self. Everything doesn’t have to be big; caring for the well being of the elderly lady crossing the canals, for instance.
So it was mentioned that by acting in a selfless manner one may be able to feel some tinge of innocence. That feeling of innocence, reclaiming something lost, some bit of happiness, that’s what this all came around to. People want to feel good; they want to be happy. So they do things that make them feel good, make them feel happy.
So can selflessness be mixed with selfishness?
Selfishness...concern for one’s own welfare and a disregard for others. Acting only according to self-regarding desires.
To use the same example from before. One can desire to help an old lady cross the canal safely. One can desire to feel good about about oneself. So one helps the old lady cross the canal and then feels good. Which desire did they feel. Were they more concerned about helping the lady or were they more concerned about making themselves feel good. Can it be both?
Doing things to help other people just because it makes you feel good.
He paused in his writing and looked it over shaking his head. He wasn’t happy with it. He started writing again on another vain of thought.
I write things to help me think. To put them on paper and make them concrete. The mind is a swirl of thought and its often hard to pin them down. Writing stuff even if its not right at least puts down a single thought that you can later say is right or wrong. You can take those words and add on to them or change them. Dispute them. Subjects like this are hard to pin down when only thinking to yourself.
He paused again and frowned at the journal again. Nothing seemed to be flowing well. He sighed softly and wrote a final piece.
What makes you happy Mister Mosur?
Making other people happy.
Selfish selflessness.
Are you happy?
Yes
He wrote the last word slowly and stared at it a moment. "No," he spoke to himself and exhaled slowly. His eyes glanced off to the side for a moment looking at nothing before he seemed to jolt back to reality. He closed the cover of the journal and quickly stuffed it away inside his robes. The priest finished off the last of his drink, a hot chocolate, and got up to leave.
