How it ought to be

It's not what people our age tend to do. Sit around the camp fire at 4 am. Even going to a party and stay the night. Of course most people went to bed much earlier. But a handful are still scattered around the site, in the dark with a gloom of light. I didn't expect this to happen anymore. I had simply given up. Even after what happened 30 years ago. But 30 years is a lot of time. People grow in 30 years. UB 40's Red Wine is playing. We're sitting on the ground, warmed by the fire and each other. The gray is taking over the brown of her hair. One could say we've gotten to know each other. "I still love you", I say. -"I know, honey".

Presidential elections setup

Why did you come to me?

"You know."

Ok. How are you doing?

"I'm fine. Let's cut to the chase..."

Well...

"Some people see it as a game. For others it's dead serious. It actually is some of both. You know.. you're just thinking out tactics and how they might work. How would they react? The best among us see it as a game of winning for the good."

Your opponents probably think the same.

"I can identify with some of their ideas, but those are just not ours. If you ask someone on the street who's interested, he will probably say the same. You know, some people know what they're going to vote and others have yet to find out. If you let me talk to someone to find out what he's going to vote next time, I couldn't. We bring percentages of people from one state of mind to the next. That is part of the job. The other part is where to invest the effort. And believe me, both are complicated. But we've become good."

Have you?

"The problem is, so have they. The 2004 elections were low-risk."

How do you mean?

"We had just become too good. You know what I said is that percentages of people are brought from one state of mind to the other. And they are doing the same. It was close. That's why low-risk tactics were best. In the end, it was a coin-flip what more than 50% of the people would do."

So what did you do?

"What could we do? Old logic would say we'd sue each other to the death. It might never end and there might never be a new president. But is that helping the American people?"

There was a law case.

"Yes, but nowadays we have new logic. Without disclosing which side I'm on, the Republicans had 2004. The next one, 2008, would be for the Democrats. The whole thing now opened up the opportunity for a woman or an afro American. Their minor statistics disadvantage was now no longer relevant. Also, in my opinion the Republicans played their role well. Without offending too much, the situation was modestly used to put forward their next candidate, and a lot of money was saved. When Barack's nomination (an afro American) became clear, they chose Palin to be put forward, a woman."

So we will have a woman next time?

"Nobody can look into the future".

Why are you telling this now?

"I have my reasons".

Will they know where the leak is?

"That's why we have Joe the Plumber, haha."

Some while ago too

So she loves me. It's kind of easy when you hit the plate once. Maybe it only counts when you hit the plate twice. Not that the one hit wouldn't count: if one is enough she definitely loves me. Just to be sure we put the ball on the pole again. Bam... klang!! That makes two. Now she really really loves me. Bam... klang!! It won't take many more to rule the world. Bam... miss. If you think about it, it was not the wisest decision to continue forever. She probably still loves me, but maybe I can make up for the one miss. You should know that generally I miss the plate often. Still it would be too easy if I could make up for one miss with one hit. I need two. If you knew her, you would understand. Bam... miss.

It ended up in the dark when I hit the plate 40 times in a row which made up for the 32 I needed before that, but wasn't enough for the 64 I needed then. I sweat because I had only one ball.

Some while ago

Baseball is not my favorite sports. But it's okay. I'm not saying we have a huuuuuuuge garden, but we have a large garden. My father has firmly attached a metal plate on top of a pole. At some distance before it is another pole. You can place a ball on top of it and hit it with a bat, but beware that you don't hit the pole. If the ball hits the metal plate on the other pole, you win. But sports history is not written in our garden. It may be written in the living room, on the telly. Me, my family and some friends are all watching. But even more important matters drive me away from the living room... I may win her love today.

There's almost no wind. It's summer, but it's not too hot and not too cold. I'm still warm from playing outside before I went inside to watch the telly, before I went outside again. We could say that the situation is perfect. The crows are making too much noise, but who cares for the crows? Let's take a deep breath. Just enjoy the situation for a couple of seconds, looking forward to the action... Just a couple of steps and... bam... klang!! The ball hits the plate. She loves me.

Send me my personal details.

I'd like to find out if I'm really anonymous. I'm not planning anything illegal so it's okay if blogspot and/or my internet connection wizards could find out where I am; I trust that they keep it confidential as they have to. But the guy with the baseball bat and his whizkid friends should not be able to find me. Won't they? Please help me find out if I overestimate my anonymity by sending me my personal details you find out already. Don't get your hopes up too high though, nothing spectacular will be revealed here in the coming future.

Is altruism as good as egoism?

Someone I used to know said that altruism is really only to serve egoism (where altruism is something like "helping the people around you"). The example is that you help a friend only because he may do something good to you later. Two are more powerful than one.

Today, we are going to show this argument false. It will be shown that altruism is not just there (for a chance) to get something back in the end. I need some credit though. I need you to realize that in daily life we are no philosophers and that we make decisions as whether to act egoistically or altruistically. Hence, there is no reason to believe that one is more important than the other, except that a popular argument says so. I just want to show that this argument is logically powerless.

So the argument is that we help other people and have friends just so that they might help us later. Also, if the people around you become better, it will do you good as well. Altruism is a "helper" of egoism. My point is that this argument can be turned around. Egoism can be seen as a "helper" of altruism. Now, let's not take the egoistic look, but the extreme altruistic.

The purpose of life is to help others. Not because it feels good, but because it is an altruistic act, we help the lady across the streets (in the hope that she lets us). One day, we think about our mortal souls as being irrelevant and we think about why not committing suicide. But then we realize that the people around us can then no longer be helped by us, and they would be sad. The egoistic act of keeping ourselves alive is just a "helper" of altruism. We accept the help of others so that we become better and so that one day we may help them and help them better.