One of the rules of thumb of Kant's moral philosophy is the universalising principle. In evaluating the validity of a moral choice ask, "Can this principle and this choice be univeralised?" I've found that a really useful and nearly always clarifying question about my own choices, behaviour and attitudes. If everyone acted as I am acting now, what would the world look like? Would it add to or subtract from human flourishing?
Here's what got me thinking about this. I came across this gift bag in a garden centre today and asked my Kantian kind of question. What would happen if everyone today adopted the attitude encouraged by the birthday advice - "Today is all about you?" I confess to being nervous about giving myself permission to be self-interested, self-satisfied, self as centre of attention. I might become addicted to it! It doesn't mean I don't do or think or feel like that sometimes - the fantasy of having a day that's all about me. And maybe I've had days like that.
I guess I'm asking what the world would be like if we all decided today is all about me. That said, it's a gift bag, and on those special days someone is giving permission to be self-undulgent. Do what you want; eat what you like; think about yourself instead of others; don't say no for today is all about you and all about yes.
Self care is a thing these days. In fact, it's a big thing, because if we don't look after ourselves we become so neglected and badly maintained we're likely to break down. So, yes, the occasional day when it's all about you, or me, is ok.
Problem is there is an underlying suspicion that if we had our own way, and had the resources we might seriously consider adopting "today is all about me" as a lifestyle. And that is something else. But isn't that exactly the life plan or life fantasy that the advertising, consumer and image generating culture is dedicated to creating? Make the self central, and its happiness and satisfaction the priority. Suggest, persuade, seduce us into linking that self-satisfaction to purchasbale products, feed our sense of worth and identity with a continuous stream of promises, project into our minds enhanced images of the self we could be, and urging us to enjoy the imagined envy of others. And all of this achieved through buying and possessing things in order to construct a self with enough inbuilt insecurity to never be satisfied, always hungry for more, and newer and better. But it's worth it, because you're worth it, because when it comes down to it, this life, it's all about you. So the philosophy of consumerist self-construction.
And if everybody thought like that, acted on that view of the world and ourself, what then of relationships, community, and the humanity to which we all belong? The "today is all about you" treat for my birthday is one thing. But it carries an assumption, and perhaps a temptation, to think that in an ideal world, this is what it should be like. And as a Christian I'm uncomfortable in ceding that much credence and inner space to such an idea and way of thinking. Placing the satisfaction and fulfilment of the self at the prioritising centre of each person's life project, is perhaps the most spiritually dangerous and morally reckless decisions a human heart can make.
You are no longer your own, you are bought with a price. He who saves his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will find it. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,...and you will find rest for your soul. What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?
These are blank contradictions of any "all about me" approach to life. If Jesus is Lord, and that Lordship is embodied in self-giving love and other-centred service, then that is what it is all about. Not all about me, ever - on the contrary, it's all about the loving grace and forgiving mercy of the one who is the Gift beyond words to the world.
This, then, is not a call to self-negation. It's a recognition that human life and Christian life under God is a gift that defines us as creatures of the gift. Each day is all about God, not us; all about love and the joy of others in which we find our meaning and God's purposes. And on those days of celebration and of self care when someone says, "Today is all about you", that's fine. Receive such days as gift, not entitlement; as occasions of renewal for all those other days that are all about others; and as reminders that when it comes down to it, each day lived in self-forgetful gratitude and self-giving care for the world of people and things around us, becomes all about you doing and being what God intended. Which means each day is all about you, doing God's thing. That is a principle that could, and in the Kingdom of God will, be universalised.
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