“And love?”–What!

Even an action for love’s sake shall be “unegoistic”?
But you fools–!
“And the praise of the self- sacrificer?”

–But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows
that he wanted and obtained something for it
–perhaps something from himself for something from himself;
that he relinquished here in order to have more there,
perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself “more.”

But this is a realm of questions and answers
in which a more fastidious spirit does not like to stay:
for here truth has to stifle her yawns so much when she is obliged to answer.

And after all, truth is a woman; one must not use force with her.

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans by Helen Zimmern, aphorism 220

Giving in order to get.  The law of exchange rules, always. There is no exception, full stop. Not even love.

“Love” is our epitome of self-sacrifice. Imagine a mother and a child in a dire circumstance. The mother sacrifices herself so that the child has improved odds to live. No doubt instinct, animal reflex has a role regarding the action taken by the mother, a snap-decision acting in a certain manner, which is hardly the result of a measured judgment, what’s reasonable. The act, a raw manifestation of nature’s bond, – but was it disinterested?

Nietzsche states that the act was no more or less disinterested than any other act of sacrifice.  The energy exchange, a giving to get, even to release a dimension of one’s self, satisfied that the reciprocal return, the payoff is well worth the investment. If not in this life, then in the after life.

Oh I nearly forgot, perhaps an after life isn’t credible for you nor for I…

No matter. “This life” as it stands, this wild ride, this ricochet between good and evil is incomparably sweet (or savory). It is not enough – that you would give your child “a shot”, his or her chance to create something more of this “consciousness” that we call life?

Investment and Compensation.

What do you think?