No such thing as free lunch

Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
-- Elphaba in Wicked (No Good Deed)

This clichéd line reveals a question that always bogs the knower: Is there true altruism?

Put simply, every altruistic act may arguably be traced to selfish motive(s). You volunteer to feel good about yourself or to satisfy your superiority complex; you help a friend to invest in a future return of favour; you donate to make yourself look good; you treat the person you love well so that he/she will requite your love; you treat someone for lunch to curry favour; and the list goes on.

A friend of mine commented that, well, since an altruistic act is performed by self, it can never be separated from self. The self is always entangled with the act: they can never be separated, so one can never be truly altruistic.

I nodded to that at the time, but then it turns out it may not be that simple.

Victor Frankl wrote about 'transcendent quality of conscience' in Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning. In essence, it means that the self can transcends itself and considers itself objectively. This is so deeply embedded in the language that we tend to overlook it: consider the reflexive pronouns (the 'selves') – say, myself. "I consider myself": 'I' is the subject and 'myself' is the object, right? Following that, we can argue that the transcendent self may then be fully removed from its selfish desires and be truly altruistic. This is what makes a person a person. The etymology of 'person' is per-sonat, literally: sounding through. Frankl goes on to point that what sounds through is the voice of transcendence.

Personally though, and I think most people would agree, that it does not matter whether one is truly altruistic or not. Is it so bad to love yourself? Jesus said, quoting the Law: "Love your neighbour as yourself." (Mark 12:31). It's true that you have to put others before yourself (and of course God before all), but the 'self' element is still there. Here we see another entanglement, albeit a slightly different one. 'Others' is always entangled with 'self', so there is no need to remove 'self' from the picture.

On a darker note, you just have to realise that people always have ulterior motives in things that they do, consciously or otherwise. You yourself also have selfish motives in everything that you do. When we play it out in the arena, we just have to be aware of those often invisible conflicts of motives and wade cautiously. Well, to be pragmatic: use and be used, needless to say, tactfully.

There goes my free lunch.
Update: Regarding loving for the hope of requital, there's a song blatantly saying exactly that.