#i've been pouring over this the whole night and finally formulated it into *something*

[sleepy-aletheas]

Hi, @iridescentmirrorsgenshin ! I'm finally putting my thoughts down about your doc, and I didn't anticipate this to come out of it (that's a lie, this is exactly what I predicted). I kinda got stuck on the section of Alhaitham's egoism and ended up with 1.8k words I'm not even sure make sense. I'm not even gonna apologize, this is a lot of fun.

But I wanted to genuinely thank you for ever writing it, it's nice to have all of your thoughts and observations to fall back on to, so I can pick my brain about something that makes me giddy.

This is less about a deeper reading on Alhaitham and Kaveh, or reinterpretation of what you wrote, and more of me going feral and adding what I call "supplemental thoughts". Or maybe it's all of the above, I'm not sure, someone else can be the judge of that.

Anyways.

The conflict between Alhaitham and Kaveh can be surmised at a glance as either: If Egoism is the ideal of living life by one's design and desires not decided by The Collective, then Altruism has to be the ideal where one has no decision about their own life until the lives of The Collective are thriving. Or it can also be: if Altruism is the ideal of living life by helping others live better to not overstep each other’s boundaries, then the Egoist has to turn a blind eye to the need of others and their passive life is contributing to everyone’s misery.

At least that is how it's usually pitted against each other from the perceived (and in many cases valid) opposition of ways of thinking. The Individual vs The Collective is an interesting way to divide people's needs after all.

Altruism in Kaveh’s case comes with a lot of baggage for him personally.

Financially, he got ruined and that struggle was an uphill battle ever since; we could even see it as a Sisyphus moment, where he pushes through his debt for financial freedom (trying to reach his own egoism), only to willingly jump down the hill to help others, ruining all his progress, and usually hurting himself in the process (even if that hurt is more on the psyche than physically).

Emotionally, it also can be complicated - he doesn't fear showing feelings, if it's in the scope of being loud or excited or openly frustrated; he blasts it all with no reserve, no shame. But he doesn't get angry, or sad, or upset. The only times anyone sees that side of him is if he's drinking, or he's too tired, or you're Alhaitham. He sees his own emotions as a heavy burden, and he doesn't want to share that weight, because of the bias that it's him. He can be miserable, because he can bear it just fine. But if someone else should do that with themselves, then that's a problem, and he has the need to help, because he knows how miserable it feels to deal with it alone. A self-imposed punishment.

But what is often times overlooked, is that Altruism in the end is a choice. People choose to do good, even on the expense of their own luxury, because of their own perceived morality and want to help.

Everyone has different reasons for being altruistic - some hate harm and cruelty in general, so they actively try to battle it, so it's not around them anymore; some lived through bad situations and want to save or help heal someone else going through it; some can see it as a self-esteem boost, because they got the skills and means to do good, so they have to be good too. It's not a cut-and-dry, one-size-fits-all type of ideal.

And yet, even if it's meant to be a positive outlook on life, a lifelong project to make the world better, if not for oneself, then someone else, it can be used as a self-harming action that would be frowned upon if someone tries to stop it.

"This person is in need, and you want me to stop? Are you really so cruel and selfish?" is a common enough excuse to push anyone questioning a person's negative altruism from ever trying to stick their nose into their method again, because The Collective usually only sees the deed and the positive result of the person helped, and not the detriment the helper acquired through their stunt. It's a very effective self-punishment if anything, especially if the person harbors so much resentment and guilt for themselves that they want to repent for their subjective sins and be absolved of the negativity (and yet, if someone has those thoughts and feelings for long enough, there is a hope in them that they never get absolved and can be punished forever, because that brings a different side of relief).

And we can easily assume that Kaveh, even with all good genuine intentions, uses his ideal for his detriment on purpose; well, maybe not 100% consciously and deliberately, but he could seek the emotional drop that his altruism gives him on a subconscious level. The fall is just as exhilarating as a high, the adrenaline will be the same in the end. It’s the aftermath that differs, and by then it’s too late to back out.

Alhaitham having the awareness that Altruism is not inherently bad just makes this discussion more tense. We can see he thinks helping people is the right thing. He doesn't have anything against the ideal itself, but he is now aware of the negative way the ideal can be practiced then when he was a student, never seeing the darker possibility.

Now he lives with somebody he cares about, and they don't care about themselves, actively chasing hurt and then refuse help they preach about and give out to others themselves. It's exhausting; it's terrifying; it's heartbreaking. And he did try to talk about it before, he tried to make Kaveh see the true nature of his Altruism. And how did it end? With a torn project paper, a name taken off on said project, long silence stretching over years, and now a rocky coexistence that has so much to talk things over, but pride and hurt doesn't allow it. Of course he would be harsh and critique it on every single turn he gets.

Alhaitham's individualism is something that always makes me pause from a writing standpoint.

Meanwhile he does a good job at following the key principles of it - he has his own house, his cushy job with a set time, his reading and own way of thinking. All of that makes him self-sufficient. He chose these things. He made them essential parts of his comfort and needs, and he refuses to compromise on their existence and their specific boundaries.

He doesn't want to be the Grand Sage, the position of Scribe fits perfectly withing the scope of the energy he is willing to spend. He doesn't need a bigger house, or lots of popular aesthetics, because he doesn't need that to feel comfortable. He doesn't waste time yapping about nothing with people he doesn't care about, he rather uses that time reading or talking to people he likes and values.

All of that is…almost perfect. It’s hard to pick it apart like Kaveh’s Altruism, because it’s almost as if we’re past Alhaitham’s realization and change for the better. There are things to pick on about how he does things, I suppose, but that is less to do with his ideals and more with how he acts, it stops being a narrative problem and more of a thing to nitpick at a personal taste.

About the misunderstanding about egoism and narcissism: From my observation, Egoism is commonly associated with Narcissism, mostly through the misconception about self-importance, and the limits between acting in self-benefit and in harming others.

Meanwhile individualistic ideals prefer to focus on the person themselves (their needs, their fulfillment not depending on someone else, their agency, their freedom of choice), it gets lumped into Narcissism, solely because that person thinks about themselves first.

Except people love to ignore that Narcissism is putting oneself above the rest and disregarding the needs and wellbeing of others, Egoism is more about someone taking care of themselves to the point where they are in a shape they could use for better things (e.g. if someone struggles with mental health, bringing them into a straining situation because it benefits others is foolish, as the person can break down, can be harmed, and then the situation and the people involved have more problems on their hands than before; but if the person focuses on getting better first, then they could go into the same straining situation, but coming out fine, because they have the capacity to endure it).

But even if Egoism can be a good ideal to follow, its negative practice can be a very ironic situation. If the individual is trying to pursue Egoism because they "wanna stick it to the man" and do all of that to go against the grain for the sake of going the opposite way, they lose their individualism and choice to have a life according to their beliefs and not The Collective. They still let the society dictate their life, but if they don't know yet how to exist for themselves, they believe crossing the road to walk the opposite direction of everyone else somehow sets them apart from the rest, and gives them full autonomy. It's almost a desperate placebo to not feel helpless and dependent. It also makes the understanding of choice an absolute mess, because they don't know what choice is and how it can look.

So when Egoism and Altruism are pitted against each other, it's just the choice to help the self against the choice to help someone else. Make others feel better by making their own life better / make oneself feel better by making the life of another better. Two sides of the same coin, really.

It's a mirror image. Mirrors don't show absolute opposites, it's the same object, but it can be from a different angle, a different medium, a different feeling. The mirror can be the surface of a still lake, the reflection in a tinted window, even a shadow in a sense is a reflection of something.

Alhaitham seems to be way ahead of knowing that both him and Kaveh aren’t a hundred percent right in how their ideals work right now. Both could use some improvements, rearrangements, reconsiderations, moving boundaries around for a more fulfilling answer that actually works and is not dictated what their teen selves tried to set into stone.

We can see it in how Alhaitham navigates the situation with Kaveh - how he prods at him; dances around topics and fights; how he pushes and pulls and jabs and waits for reactions to note down for future use and consideration. And when he oversteps, he backs away, creates distance, ceases his teasing, because he knows better. That is his go at altruism, putting his own comfort to the side to help another (even if it’s through an egoist lens).

And honestly? Kaveh might also know both of their ideals aren’t fine tuned yet either. He lives through the consequences of his own actions he orchestrated. If anybody knows the flaws of his ideals, it’s him first and foremost. But there are more blocks and obstacles in his way of becoming better, of tuning it to an actually usable means of living. And he knows that to actively pursue his ideals, he needs to learn how to reach his own individualism so he can be strong enough to be altruistic (so really, his egoism is still through the lens of altruism).

Both of them struggle with their pride - a scholar’s fatal flaw - and their joined character arc pretty much heads to them learning through each other to set it aside and embrace the reflection of their own ideal to actually make it a reality in a way that is worth striving for.