Balance

Guitar may be crazy, but he sort of had a point.

"Perhaps that's what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?"

Looking at this quote, there's obviously a lot of room for some middle-ground. What does it even mean to save someone's life, seeing as there can be many different circumstances that would result in numerous levels of sacrifice? I mean, anyone would pull a stranger out of the path of a swerving car. But not everyone would jump in front of the car itself, to prevent that person from being harmed. It all depends on how much you care about that person, or even what your morals are, or how much you value yourself. On the other hand, taking someone's life isn't even really a question. If you hate someone that much, you're still not going to kill them, just so you don't have to deal with their behavior.. unless you're seriously unhinged.

But that's besides the point. To save someone's life is to perform a selfless act, and to take someone's life is to be selfish.

Throughout these past couple of weeks, that's really all I've been thinking of. Isn't all that we do either motivated to benefit or assist ourselves, or somebody else? All of our relationships seem to be defined by how much we will do for that person, versus how much we are doing for ourselves. When you truly love a person, you are willing to give up the world for them, even if it means sacrificing your own happiness. When you truly hate a person, you will do nothing for them, and instead entirely focus on what you deserve, that they don't.

Life cannot be seen through only extremes, however. The middle ground is always where it gets complicated.

Selfishness can make other people unhappy, but selflessness can make yourself unhappy as well. Speaking from personal experience, holding in how you may feel for months in efforts of not ruining another person's wellbeing can make you feel like you are going to burst. But when you do burst, and finally start thinking about yourself, you gain relief but also wreck and crush another person in the process. So, what do you do? Does their happiness matter more than yours?

I feel as though there's an invisible spectrum to how much you may care about a person, or how strong your relationship is. Going from love to hate, anywhere in the middle, there's always a breaking point for those we almost love, or a little bit of caring involved for those we almost hate. It's just a question of how much selflessness we can endure before we turn a little selfish, or how much selfishness we can endure before we turn a little selfless.

How much are we allowed to care about ourselves, if we claim that we strongly care about another? And if society is now constantly promoting the idea of "put yourself first," then how come I feel awful for abiding?

It's a constant moral dilemma. But I just don't feel like either option I'm given is the correct one. To all my readers, I'm sorry if this weird-long post wasn't making that much sense. My brain feels stuck.