11b Motivation & Legitimacy

 Physician's Notebooks 11 - http://physiciansnotebook.blogspot.com - See Homepage

11b  Motivation, Legitimacy and Purpose in Life - Update 23 September 2021.  I think it is important for each person to analyze motives that may be due to unaware desires formed in childhood, or based on ideological, religious or parental propaganda, not helpful to one's self or the Earth. 

Many persons are seemingly well motivated in a way that has manipulated them to benefit another person or to promote an organization's or business's agenda. For example the desire to spread democracy in the world was used to cause many persons to support the U.S.A.'s 2003 invasion of Iraq that turned into a nightmare for the Iraqi's, the U.S.A. and the Earth. One should always check one's motive against the facts that caused it; and a successfully completed self psychoanalysis is needed to be sure the basis of the motive is not a selfish reason that may actually harm others, harm one's self, or harm the Earth.

The basis of most personal motives is enjoyment of one's own life, and I do not think this, necessarily, bad. 

But one wants to be sure the enjoyment is legitimate, healthy and not harmful to other humans or to the Earth. When I use “the Earth”, I include all nonhuman animals, plants and even the inanimate objects of our planet – it is an acknowledgment of the importance of a non-anthropocentric view. 

Relating to that is a Ray Bradbury story (To hear the full story on Dimension X, Google Dimension X - (26) And The Moon Be Still As Bright). It shows a character (Spender) who takes a non-anthropocentric view and it shows how he is opposed by his crew members who, like most humans, do not consider anything but their own humans-only view. This gets to the very difficult question of the legitimacy in one's life.

                    End of Section; To continue to the next, click 11c Legitimacy in One's Life