The ant in the sink

Altruism usually means putting in the first spark. Initial energy needs some effort and that usually means some inconvenience. But what we put out will come back to serve us, if we move away from the demeaning type of moral altruism and move towards a more relative altruism. It is just a matter of putting it into practice: being impartially and randomly altruistic and for it to become as unconscious as breathing fresh air. It mustn’t be too carefully planned or so casual that it goes unnoticed. It has to be performed in such a way that the 'cards may fall where they will'. If we choose to unselfishly act in the best interests of our own child, then that’s the way we should do everything. When making our next decision, say finding an ant in the sink; it’s up to us to decide its fate. Perhaps we don’t want it there, perhaps we don’t like ants, perhaps we think to drown it; but in resisting the temptation to turn on the tap, we switch from self interest to the interest of the insect. We save it and learn to deal with the situation another way. Through that choice we don’t so much solve a problem (of the ant in the sink) we take it as a lesson in acting non-violently. Every situation that might tempt us into making a selfish decision is a chance for opposite-thinking, of not taking the line of least resistance. If choosing to take the altruistic route means treating the ant with the same consideration as we show the child, we draw closer to the ant’s world. We do it not only to be kind to the ant, but also for our own sake. It opens our imagination, it gets us closer to the "other universe" and the ant’s own world. It brings us closer to an unknown world which needs to remain outside our own understanding for its own reasons.