25 oct

Julie and I were having a conversation about the way conversations are perceived. More specifically when there is advice involved. Advice is involved at any moment when there is a problem being stated, at least when there is a conversation with me. because problems need to be solved.
But there is not always advice in a conversation, of course. You can have just a nice little chatter, talking about the weather and about the chance there is some rain going to fall. ‘ it might get sunny! It is the kind of non information rich sentence that most of our days get filled up with. ‘ It might not, and in this information the chances have changed from 0,5% to 0 %. And who would want to take a chance on that. No gamblers, I am sure.
But let us pretend there is some advise in a conversation. Depending on the way you look at it every advise can be considered pretentious or helpful (or not helpful) How do you look at it? The right answer to me seems to be that in every advise there is a little bit of both: There is always going to be the pretending, but hopefully also the good intention. The one can not exist without the other, it seems to me. Or not? Can there be intention without pretending, I am wondering.
I have the feeling this is a substantial question, being asked here. Maybe it needs to be redefined. Can there be interest in somebody else, if there is no interest in oneself.
Economists used to answer this question without any doubt. The self-interest is the only thing that counts, referring back, in a narrow looking way to Adam Smith who saw people working for common good out of self-interest.
But insight in human behaviour improved. Life has to be more complicating than this. But still, there has to be some common interest in the self interest in order of it to be of any value.
This is not a value in $- terms or €-terms, to be sure. Those are ways to count value in a term too short to make it of a real value.
But then, what is real value?
The question is getting too complicated. But is of value none the less. Because it asks if there could be something like common interest with disregard of something like self-interest? I think the answer is negative. Because I think that in every behaviour that might be considered as of an altruistic nature – and this is how most behaviour should be (wow, it is not even sunday!) there is some self-interest (egocentric) aspect to it. It is, in a way, a recognition of the animalistic aspect of the human being.
The answer is probably not unequivocally. There is no truth in conversation. It is all about perceptions. And perceptions differ. It is something that needs to be talked about. Time for some advice. I am going to have Julie read this.