Letters to the Editor
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We need to get beyond our own selfish genes to call it "meaningful"
Doing things for your children is the closest thing there is to doing things for yourself. They are one-half you. One-half their genes are your genes. And, they are usually one-half the person closest to you, a person who want to please for your own selfish reasons -- your spouse.
Here, the children are one-quarter you. OK, a little less than usual, but still pretty darn close to being you.
Loving oneself, loving one's family, loving one's tribe, loving one's nation . . . big whoop.
Why is doting on one's own not recognized as the one-millimeter outwardly-extended selfishness which it is?
We need to embrace the larger family of humankind, or the order of mammals, or vertebrates or . . . the Planet Earth to have really gotten beyond ourselves to be doing something "meaningful."
Doting on one's own children is just instinct, genes; the lowest animals do it.
The LW needs to try harder and to think more deeply about what life really means and what the Planet really needs in order to find real meaning and not just a comfortable cop-out.
Jan VanDenBerg