Insensitive

 

Eric Hoffer, on Page 88 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          152

 

Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.”

 

My response: When one thinks of being sensitive in a negative sense, it is the concept of being touchy, overly sensitized to input of an irritating, unpleasant kind.

 

What Hoffer has in mind, I believe, is suggesting that to be sensitive is to be caring and thoughtful and considerate about the feelings, needs, and touchy sore spots carried by others so as to not ruffle their feathers needlessly, causing them unwelcome pain.

 

He, the implicit promoter of egoist morality, is suggesting that a person that lacks sensitivity about the needs of others, is likely a joiner and nonindividuator, not a loner or maverizer.

 

To self-realize is to love the self, to come to know the self, to be sensitive to what one needs, what one must avoid, what brings one pleasure, and what brings one pain, what are one’s obligations to be met if one strives to be able to continue thinking well of the self.

 

Once the self-aware self-realizer, now awake and sensitive to what he or what any other person needs, is able to feel sympathy, compassion and fellow-feeling, and will seek to act so as to maximize their healthy pleasure or enjoyment, while avoiding adding to their degrading pain and suffering, especially malevolent, senseless, uncalled-for suffering.

 

 

Hoffer: “          153

 

The inability to see into ourselves often manifests itself in a certain coarseness and clumsiness. One can be brazen, rude and even dishonest without being aware of it.”

 

My response: Egoist morality makes people self-aware, so they readily know how they are acting, and if their actions hare bringing enjoyment or pain to others, and that they have no right to bring pain to others.

 

The rudeness, dog-eat-dog competitiveness, and law of the jungle vying is best demonstrated  by how groupist nonindividuators mistreat each other every day on any American freeway.

 

This is why I urge self-realizers to always treat others with courtesy, kindness, dignity, and respect—it is their due.