Morality and Desire

It is 5am, and I'm tired. But happy. Both those things are rarely conducive to good writing for me, but I hope you will bear with me. Anyway, I had my first morality and culture class today, and it looks to be an interesting class. And it started me thinking about my own moral framework. For years I'd figured the Golden Rule was good enough. Recently, I've come to feel that the absolute morality is that which is based entirely on the destruction of the concept of self and of our servitude to it. Of course, there is no complete abandonment of self. But one can aspire to that ideal, I believe, in one's relationships with others. I've thought that for a while, but it is only until very recently that I've truly been able to practice it. That is because I found that I was still allowing desire to control my thought and emotion, my perceptions and behavior. And desire is inherently self-centered. It seems, in fact, to be a completely instinctive and animalistic concept. And furthermore, it seems to serve no purpose, besides create anxiety and discontent. My mind is drifting... I'll have to come back to this later. But I will quote Carly on this: "Morality is just a weird by-product of humanity". I have to say that I agree. Because any definition of humanity requires desire, awareness of desire, and meta-awareness. And if, as I believe, humanity as we know it holds those as its cornerstones, then humanity in an individual dictates an inherent self-centeredness, and in the group requires higher levels of centrism such as anthropocentrism. Humanity therefore requires codes and frameworks of morality that ensure that self-interest is served while order on the higher levels is maintained. Without humanity as such, morality would indeed be unnecessary. Not that I'm saying humanity must be abandoned. On the contrary, I am saying it should be strengthened, redefined, and re-invented. That's it I'm done for now. I'll just put up a song for you guys, and then it's good night. Peace.