From this point, this vision proceeds from a fundamental hypothesis: embodiment itself is a relationship of interest. Everything that becomes embodied in the material world becomes embodied because it performs a function, achieves a benefit, and contributes to preserving a system greater than itself. Therefore, no element can be found within the body that does not possess a functional value or an existential interest, no matter how small or simple it may appear.
Hair performs a function, the eye performs a function, the ear performs a function, and the skin performs a function. Likewise, the heart, lungs, stomach, and liver perform more complex functions. It is in the interest of the respiratory system to breathe oxygen-rich air, and it is in the interest of the stomach to receive food that it is able to digest. It is also in the interest of every organ to find the environment suitable for the continuation of its work. Thus, every element within the body is governed by the law of interest, not by the law of chance.
This law is not limited to the organs alone; rather, it extends to the relationships that unite them. All relationships within the body are functional relationships based on mutual benefit. No organ works against another organ, and no part seeks to corrupt the whole to which it belongs, because the well-being of the whole is the condition that guarantees the continuation of the interest of every part.
From here, it becomes possible to move from understanding the body to understanding the entire embodied world. If the whole body is built upon functional interests, then everything that exists within the world of embodiment is subject to the same principle. Every person who enters your life, every relationship that arises around you, every institution, every movement, and every social, economic, or political system exists because it fulfills a certain kind of interest, whether that interest is apparent or hidden, noble or corrupt.
Therefore, the real question is not: Does an interest exist? Rather, it is: What kind of interest governs this relationship?
Interest and Corruption: When Benefit Turns into Its Opposite
If the fundamental principle of embodied existence is that everything performs a function beneficial to itself, then the appearance of an element that brings no benefit to this system reveals that the relationship has moved from the sphere of integrity into the sphere of corruption.
Parasites and viruses, for example, possess an interest of their own, yet they do not serve the interest of the body in which they reside. Instead, their benefit depends upon weakening it. They grow only as the body declines, and they become stronger only as its vital systems weaken. Here, a different form of relationship appears: one in which the prosperity of one party depends upon the collapse of the other.
This is the meaning of corruption.
Corruption is a relationship in which the interest of one party is based upon corrupting the interest of the opposing party. Therefore, such relationships are not limited to biological diseases; they extend to every level of life.
There are entities, projects, ideas, and people whose interest lies in corrupting the human liver or disrupting the digestive system. Likewise, there are other entities whose interest lies in causing a person to fail in social relationships, to see the family collapse, to become economically weakened, or to witness the breakdown of the political or civilizational order. In all of these cases, the principle remains the same: the benefit of one party is achieved only through the corruption of the other.
From here, an extremely important philosophical question emerges: if every party seeks its own interest, then which one represents what is right? Is the human being who defends the well-being of his body the one who possesses the truth? Or does the organism that can survive only by corrupting that body also regard itself as pursuing a legitimate interest?
This question is not about the existence of interest itself. Rather, it reveals that the world is founded upon the conflict of different kinds of interests, and that the real problem is not the existence of interest, but the nature of the interest embraced by every being, whether it is based on construction or corruption, and whether it serves the common good of existence or not.
The Human Being and the Creation of an Environment of Corruption
Yet the matter does not end with the existence of corrupting beings. It extends to a deeper question: how do these entities enter human life in the first place?
A human being attracts into his sphere whatever is compatible with his inner condition. A corrupt being cannot settle within a completely healthy environment, just as parasites cannot flourish inside a body possessing complete immunity. Therefore, the appearance of corruption in any area of life usually reveals that there was already a source of corruption before its arrival.
If a disease appears in the biological sphere, a corrupt individual appears in the social sphere, a toxic relationship emerges in the emotional sphere, or corruption spreads within the economic sphere, then the first question should not be, "Who is the oppressor?" Rather, it should be: "What attracted the oppressor in the first place?"
The beings that feed upon corruption are attracted only to corruption. They search for wounds, points of weakness, distorted ideas, damaged emotions, and diseased bodies because they cannot survive in an environment dominated by integrity, value, and usefulness.
A wound attracts what feeds upon wounds. Corruption attracts what feeds upon corruption. Emptiness attracts what lives upon emptiness.
For this reason, the appearance of a corrupting person in someone's life is not merely an accidental event. It is an invitation to examine the inner structure that allowed that person to enter.
Judging the oppressor alone is not enough, because the deeper question is: what did the oppressor see in the victim that attracted him? What seed did he discover that enabled him to turn it into fertile ground for the growth of his oppression?
Here begins the transition from condemning what is outside to examining what is within, and from searching for the corrupter to searching for the door through which corruption entered.
How Does a Human Being Create His Own Oppressor Without Realizing It?
If corruption enters a domain only through an opening that corresponds to its own nature, then the next question becomes even deeper: why is the oppressor attracted to one person rather than another? Why do some environments become incubators of oppression while others remain resistant to every attempt at corruption?
The oppressor does not seek strength; he seeks weakness. He does not seek the person who knows himself, but the one who has lost connection with his own worth. The oppressor is not attracted to perfection, but to the earliest signs of deficiency, just as germs are attracted to open wounds rather than to a healthy body.
Thus, the presence of an oppressor in a person's life becomes a sign worthy of contemplation rather than merely an occasion for passing judgment. Before asking, "Why did this person oppress me?" one should ask oneself: "What did this oppressor see within me that made me suitable ground for producing his oppression?"
The oppressor does not love integrity, nor does he feel comfortable in the presence of a person who knows his own worth and interest. Instead, he is drawn to those who are unaware of them. He sees ignorance of one's true interest as an opportunity, weakness of awareness as a doorway through which he can enter, and distance from integrity as a suitable environment in which to establish himself.
Here another meaning of corruption becomes apparent. Corruption is not merely an act committed by the corrupter; it is a reciprocal relationship between an inner susceptibility and an external exploitation. Had that susceptibility not existed, corruption would have found no path through which to appear.
Therefore, the first step in resisting oppression is not to resist the oppressor himself, but to eliminate the susceptibility that invited him. Once the condition that made his presence possible disappears, his presence itself disappears immediately.
The Oppressor Was Once Oppressed
Yet the picture is not complete at this point, because the oppressor himself is not a phenomenon detached from this law. He, too, is the product of an earlier process.
In many cases, the oppressor was not born an oppressor. Rather, there was a stage in his life when he was oppressed, and oppression settled within him until it became the language through which he dealt with the world. Oppression overcame him, and he then came to overcome others through it.
Thus, a person is transformed from one who suffers pain into one who inflicts pain, from one who was struck into one who strikes, and from a victim into an executioner—not because he consciously chose this path, but because an experience that was never understood gradually became his identity.
When the waves of the sea strike a person, they may drive him to strike others just as he himself was struck. This is not because he loves violence, but because he never learned another way to deal with his own pain.
For this reason, the oppressor reproduces his own past in the lives of others. Every time he creates a new victim, he recreates himself. It is as though oppression is never satisfied with existing only once, but continually seeks to give birth to itself again.
Herein lies the tragedy: the oppressor does not merely produce victims; he produces future versions of himself.
The Past Creates the Future
From here we may move to a deeper principle: a human being shapes his future only through the way he deals with his past.
Everything that stands before us, everything that has already become embodied in reality, belongs to the past. The future, on the other hand, is everything that has not yet taken form.
Therefore, the past is not merely a period of time that has passed. It is everything that has already become reality, everything that has happened, everything that has emerged from possibility into embodiment.
The future, meanwhile, still exists within the realm of possibility.
When a human being deals with what has already become embodied, he is, in reality, shaping what will become embodied later.
The way a person deals with the past is the very way in which he creates his future.
For this reason, every relationship a human being establishes with reality is not merely a response to the present; it is, at the same time, an act of shaping the future.
The future does not emerge out of nothing. It is generated by the way we deal with what has already come into existence.
The Oppressor Is the Future of the Oppressed
Here a remarkably subtle idea becomes clear: the oppressor who stands before the oppressed is not merely another person. In many cases, he represents the future that the oppressed person himself may become if he surrenders to the same wound.
The oppressor recognized in the oppressed the beginning of the very path that he himself once walked.
He saw a small wound.
He saw weakness in its earliest stage.
He saw a slight departure from integrity.
And he knew that if this seed were left without awareness, it would one day grow into the very same tree from which he himself had emerged.
Therefore, while the oppressor practices oppression, he does not merely create another victim; he creates a future oppressor.
And if the oppressed person fails to become aware of what is taking place within him, he may eventually become the very version of himself that he once despised.
Thus, the oppressor becomes an image of the future, while the oppressed becomes an image of the past, and the cycle begins once again.
The most dangerous aspect of oppression is that it does not merely wound a human being; it attempts to reshape his identity until he becomes an extension of oppression itself.
Unconsciousness Is the Environment in Which Oppression Is Born
All of this leads to an even broader conclusion: oppression is not born in awareness, but in its absence.
A person who is truly aware is unlikely either to create an oppressor or to become one himself, because he recognizes the beginning of deviation before it becomes a path.
Unconsciousness, however, is the natural environment in which every form of corruption is generated.
The oppressor does not oppress so much as he expresses a state of inner absence.
Likewise, when the oppressed person is unaware of what is happening within him, he too participates in the continuation of this cycle.
For this reason, every act of oppression is the result of the absence of awareness in one of the two parties, or in both.
Awareness breaks the chain before it begins, whereas unconsciousness allows it to continue from one generation to the next.
When a human being lives without awareness, he deals with the past violently, and from that violence he creates a future that is even more violent.
When that future finally arrives, it returns to oppress the past once again, and the cycle continues as though time were endlessly reproducing itself.
Thus, it may be said that an oppressive future is nothing but a past that was never understood, and an oppressed past is nothing but a future that has not yet been healed.
From this perspective, awareness is not merely knowledge. It is an act of liberation that halts the transmission of oppression from one time to another, from one person to another, and from one generation to the next.
Do Not Let Your Future Oppress Your Past
When a human being reaches this stage of understanding, he discovers that oppression does not always come from other people. It may come from time itself, or more precisely, from the way he relates to time.
A person may oppress himself while believing that he is building his future.
He postpones happiness until tomorrow, postpones rest until tomorrow, postpones contentment until tomorrow, and even postpones life itself until tomorrow, until the present becomes nothing more than a means whose only value lies in what will come afterward.
At that moment, the future begins to oppress the past.
A person who always lives waiting for a better time grants all value to the future while depriving the present of its rightful place. He steals from the self that exists now in order to grant every privilege to a version of himself that does not yet exist.
This is a hidden form of oppression.
The future should never become the master of the past, nor should the present become a sacrifice offered to days that have not yet arrived.
Therefore, a human being must not allow his future to oppress him, just as he must not allow his past to imprison him. A just life is one that gives every moment its due, neither glorifying the future at the expense of the present nor enslaving the present to hopes that have not yet been realized.
The Beginning of Darkness Is Not Outside
If the oppressor can enter only through an opening, then the question becomes: where is that opening?
The beginning of darkness does not start with the existence of the oppressor. It begins much earlier, when a person distances himself from his true interest.
The meaning of interest here is not the narrow meaning to which popular culture has reduced it—selfishness, greed, or material gain. Rather, it refers to everything that brings about a person's integrity, value, usefulness, and existential fulfillment.
The closer a person comes to his true interest, the closer he comes to the light.
The farther he moves away from it, even by a single small step, the more darkness begins to take shape.
Therefore, the oppressor did not create the darkness; he merely found its beginning.
He found a person who had begun to drift away from his own worth, and he entered through that distance, just as moisture enters through a small crack in a wall until it eventually destroys the entire structure.
The oppressor does not create the point of departure; he merely exploits it.
The Person Who Does Not Know What Is Good for Him
In everyday life, people say of one person that he "knows what is good for him," while they say of another that he "does not know what is good for him." Despite the simplicity of this common expression, it carries a profound philosophical meaning.
The one who knows what is good for him knows what benefits him and what harms him.
He knows the path that builds him and the path that destroys him.
He knows the relationships that give him life and the relationships that drain him.
He knows when to draw near and when to step away.
He knows where to say yes and where to say no.
As for the one who does not know what is good for him, he becomes easy prey for anyone who wishes to exploit him.
For this reason, oppressors benefit only from those who do not know their own interests.
They cannot deceive a person who sees clearly; they succeed only with the one who has lost his insight.
Thus, ignorance of one's true interest becomes one of the greatest gateways through which oppression enters.
The Law Does Not Protect Those Who Do Not Know Their Rights
A common saying declares: "The law does not protect the ignorant."
If we move beyond its legal meaning to its existential one, we find that the ignorant person is the one who does not know his rights.
A person's first right is to know what is truly good for him.
To know his own worth.
To know his limits.
To know what builds him and what destroys him.
A person who does not know his rights cannot defend them, and one who does not know his own interest cannot distinguish it from what opposes it.
Such a person becomes easy prey for those who feed upon ignorance.
Those who spread corruption do not survive on the strength of others, but on their ignorance.
They do not steal a person's awareness after he has acquired it, but before he has ever come to possess it.
Therefore, awareness of one's true interest becomes an act of self-defense before it becomes a defense of wealth, status, or relationships.
Knowing the Truth Is Knowing One's True Interest
The more deeply a person comes to know himself, the more capable he becomes of recognizing his true interest.
Truth is not merely an abstract idea. It is an accurate knowledge of what is compatible with your nature and what contradicts it.
Whoever does not know his true nature will never know what is truly good for him.
For this reason, those who spread corruption benefit from the person who lives estranged from himself, because such a person is easily led toward what harms him while believing that it benefits him.
But the person who has discovered his true nature has, at the same time, discovered what is good for him, because truth and integrity always walk together.
Once a person knows what is truly good for him, he naturally begins to move toward what benefits him and away from what corrupts him.
This is not merely a moral act, but an existential one through which a person preserves the integrity of his inner structure from collapse.
Interest Is Not Selfishness
The concept of interest has been profoundly distorted until many people have become embarrassed to admit that they have interests, as though interest were synonymous with exploitation or selfishness.
In reality, however, the matter is entirely different.
Interest, in its true meaning, is the movement of a person toward whatever brings about his own well-being, without making that well-being depend upon the corruption of others.
It does not mean that you gain while another loses; rather, it means that good is realized for both parties.
Therefore, a relationship that does not produce mutual benefit is not a healthy relationship, no matter how beautifully it may be decorated with slogans.
If one party continues to lose so that the other may continue to gain, this is not virtue but another form of oppression.
But when both parties flourish through one another, and each finds in the other's success a part of his own, then this is a relationship founded upon justice.
My interest is not opposed to yours. Indeed, my true interest may well be that your own interest is also fulfilled, because I cannot genuinely prosper while those around me live in constant ruin.
Security cannot truly exist amid fear.
Wealth cannot truly flourish amid poverty.
Stability cannot truly endure amid chaos.
Thus, true interest is not an individual project but a system in which the flourishing of one party becomes the cause of the flourishing of the other, rather than the cause of his destruction.
In this way, interest is transformed from a moral accusation into an existential law, and from a narrow concept into the very foundation upon which all healthy relationships are built.
The Just Relationship: When Another Person's Interest Becomes Part of Your Own
It has become deeply rooted in the collective consciousness that a noble relationship is one that is free of interest, to the point that people often feel embarrassed to admit that their relationships have purposes or benefits. Yet, according to this perspective, such an understanding is not an expression of virtue, but rather a misunderstanding of the very nature of existence.
The problem does not lie in the existence of interest itself, but in its nature.
A relationship founded upon the exploitation of one party by another is not a relationship of mutual interest but a relationship of corruption. A relationship in which both parties benefit, and in which each becomes more complete through the existence of the other, represents one of the highest expressions of justice.
Therefore, a contract that does not benefit both of its parties cannot be considered a just contract, regardless of the slogans, emotions, or promises attached to it.
The simplest criterion for judging any relationship is to ask: Do both parties emerge from it with more life, greater value, and a stronger ability to realize themselves?
If the answer is yes, then it is a healthy relationship.
If one party continually benefits while the other continually pays the price, then this is not a true relationship but another manifestation of oppression.
A person should never feel ashamed of having interests, just as he should never feel ashamed that the other party has interests as well, because justice does not require the elimination of interests but their harmony.
My true interest is not that I possess everything alone, but that an environment exists in which both you and I are able to flourish together.
No one can live in complete security while his neighbor lives in constant fear, nor can anyone enjoy genuine prosperity while those around him are drowning in poverty and disorder, because destruction recognizes no boundaries. What reaches another today may reach him tomorrow.
Thus, another person's interest becomes a natural extension of my own—not as an act of sacrifice, but because it is one of the conditions upon which the stability of life itself depends.
Why Do Relationships That Deny Interest End in Oppression?
People often claim that relationships in the past were based on sacrifice rather than on mutual interests, and that people loved one another "for God's sake" or "without expecting anything in return." Yet this perception deserves profound reconsideration.
When we carefully examine many of those relationships, we often discover that one party carried most of the burden while the other enjoyed the privileges.
How many wives spent entire decades surrendering their rights in the name of duty?
How many husbands carried burdens beyond their strength because they had been taught that endless sacrifice was the true measure of manhood?
How many sons and daughters lived as prisoners of guilt because they believed that loving their families required the abandonment of themselves?
These relationships were not free of interests; rather, they concealed the interest of one party beneath noble names.
For this reason, any relationship in which one party is required to surrender his value, his rights, or his peace of mind so that another may feel secure cannot be considered just, because justice cannot be built upon the elimination of one of its parties.
Oppression begins the moment a person is expected to abandon himself in order to give himself to someone else.
The Executioner Does Not Create His Victim Alone
When the oppressor meets his victim, that meeting is not a coincidence.
The executioner does not choose just anyone. He searches for the person who does not know his own limits, his own rights, or what is truly good for him.
He seeks someone who feels guilty whenever he defends himself, who feels ashamed whenever he demands his rights, or who believes that endless sacrifice is a virtue.
Such a person becomes the ideal environment for the production of oppression.
For this reason, the victim is not blamed for having been oppressed. Rather, he is invited to search for the inner susceptibility that allowed oppression to enter.
If someone says, "He deceived me," then the next question should be: "What made me susceptible to deception?"
If he says, "He exploited me," then the deeper question becomes: "Why was he able to exploit me in particular?"
These questions do not absolve the oppressor, but they empower the individual not to reproduce the same experience again.
Unless the doors through which oppression entered are closed, the people may change, but oppression itself will continue to return in different forms.
The Person Who Knows What Is Good for Him Does Not Live in Blindness
Knowing one's true interest is not merely theoretical knowledge; it is practical insight.
A person who knows what is truly good for him becomes capable of discerning people, ideas, relationships, and opportunities before entering into them.
He does not wait until he falls into a trap and then search for an explanation of what happened. Rather, he recognizes the signs of danger from the very beginning.
For this reason, he closes his doors to those who spread corruption and opens them to those who embody integrity.
Integrity here does not refer to those who merely proclaim noble slogans, but to everyone whose presence increases life, freedom, value, and peace.
Likewise, he is not deceived by everything that appears beneficial, because he knows that many apparent benefits conceal profound harm within them.
Not everything that shines is gold, and not everything that promises profit leads to genuine prosperity.
Therefore, a person needs insight that enables him to perceive the true nature of things rather than their outward appearances.
Insight Is the Condition for Survival
Imagine that a person is suddenly placed in an unknown land filled with forests, rivers, mountains, and creatures he has never seen before.
What is the very first kind of knowledge he needs in order to survive?
He does not first need to know the names of things. Rather, he must know what is suitable for him and what threatens him.
Which plants can be eaten?
Which ones are poisonous?
Which animals may safely be approached?
Which ones must be avoided?
Which paths lead to water?
Which paths lead to destruction?
This ability to distinguish is the essence of insight.
Life is not very different from that.
A person does not survive through the quantity of information he possesses, but through his ability to distinguish between what is compatible with his nature and what contradicts it, between what builds his existence and what destroys it.
For this reason, the most painful relationships are often those into which a person entered because he failed to perceive their true nature. Had he possessed such insight from the beginning, he would never have needed to learn the price of error after it had already occurred.
Awareness does not prevent a person from living; it grants him the ability to choose the life that is truly worth living.
Love, Interest, and the Misunderstanding of Selfishness
Among the concepts that have suffered the greatest distortion in human culture is the concept of interest. Its mere mention has become enough to arouse suspicion, as though a virtuous person were one who desires nothing for himself or who continually sacrifices himself in order to prove the sincerity of his love.
Yet, however noble this perspective may appear, it carries within itself the seeds of oppression.
A person who always abandons his own interest does not liberate others. Instead, he compels them to live within a distorted relationship, because a healthy relationship is not built upon one party sacrificing while the other continually receives. Rather, it is built upon two people who each respect the interest of the other just as they respect their own.
For this reason, the statement, "I do not think about myself; I think only about you," is not necessarily an expression of love. It may instead be the beginning of an unhealthy relationship.
The person who erases himself today may tomorrow seek compensation for everything he surrendered, live with hidden bitterness, or expect the other person to repay an emotional debt in one form or another.
A healthy relationship, however, is not founded upon emotional debts, but upon clarity of interests, so that each party knows what he gives and what he receives, without feelings of exploitation or guilt.
Thinking About Oneself Is Not Selfishness
The simple statement, "I think about myself," has come to be understood as a declaration of selfishness, even though thinking about oneself is the very first condition of responsibility.
A person who does not know how to preserve himself will never know how to preserve others.
One who does not respect his own worth cannot truly respect the worth of others.
Therefore, thinking about oneself, in its higher meaning, is not self-absorption but an accurate understanding of what builds one's being and what destroys it.
There is a profound difference between selfishness, which is based on harming others in order to gain benefits, and self-respect, which consists of preserving one's own rights while respecting the rights of everyone else.
For this reason, a person who truly understands his own interest neither expects others to sacrifice themselves for him nor accepts sacrificing himself in order to preserve a relationship that is fundamentally built upon injustice.
Interests Are Not Limited to Money
One of the common mistakes is reducing interest to material benefit alone.
A person's interest may lie in knowledge, dialogue, peace of mind, companionship, beauty, wisdom, love, or even in simply speaking with someone in whose presence he feels at ease.
Therefore, the existence of interest does not necessarily imply exploitation.
My interest may be to spend time with someone who broadens my understanding, fills me with tranquility, or helps me understand life more deeply. Likewise, that person's interest may also be to find something beneficial in my conversation.
In such a case, there is neither exploiter nor exploited. There is simply harmony between two mutual benefits.
Life does not exist on a single level that can reduce all interests to wealth or power.
Rather, it consists of interconnected levels, each possessing its own forms of interest, and the broader a person's vision becomes, the broader his understanding of interest becomes as well.
When Duty Becomes Oppression
No one denies the value of responsibility, yet responsibility is one thing, while turning a person into a prisoner of duty is something entirely different.
When duty becomes a means of eliminating a person's freedom or forcing him to give endlessly without genuine willingness, it loses its moral value and becomes another form of oppression.
An action that does not arise from conviction but from fear cannot build a healthy relationship.
The same applies to actions performed while a person feels imprisoned, deprived of choice, or compelled to sacrifice himself merely to preserve a certain image before society.
Therefore, a conscious relationship is founded not upon coercion but upon renewed choice.
Each day, a person chooses to remain because he truly wishes to remain, not because he is incapable of leaving.
Waiting... An Injustice Created by the Future
Among the most dangerous forms of injustice a person commits against himself is living in constant expectation.
He waits for others to appreciate him.
He waits for them to love him.
He waits for them to grant him value.
He waits for recognition, praise, or status.
Yet this waiting suspends his life upon something that has not yet happened.
Thus, the future begins to dominate the present.
The one who waits lives outside the present moment.
By contrast, the person who knows his own worth does not make his self-esteem dependent upon what others choose to give him.
He meets people because he desires the encounter, not because he seeks from them a definition of himself.
He loves because he chooses to love, not because he expects another person to fill his inner emptiness.
He gives because he has chosen generosity, not because he fears rejection.
Thus, liberation from waiting becomes another form of liberation from the tyranny of the future.
The Free Person Does Not Seek a New Prison
Many relationships gradually become mutual prisons.
Each party imposes rules upon the other.
Each party burdens the other with endless obligations.
Each fears losing the other and therefore attempts to bind him more tightly.
The final result, however, is that the relationship itself loses its vitality.
A person does not enter a relationship in order to lose his freedom, but to expand it.
Nor does he enter it in order to carry new chains, but to find a space in which he can truly be himself without fear.
For this reason, a relationship in which a person cannot be who he truly is is not a relationship that serves his genuine good.
Conclusion
According to this perspective, the world is not fundamentally based upon the conflict between good and evil, but rather upon the conflict between awareness and unawareness, between integrity and the departure from it.
A person does not attract injustice because he was created to be a victim, but because he has, to varying degrees, moved away from knowing his true interest, his value, and his true nature.
The more aware he becomes of himself, of what builds him and what destroys him, the more the doors through which corruption enters are closed, and the more just, free, and mutually beneficial his relationships become.
Therefore, interest, in its true meaning, is not the opposite of morality, but its mature expression, because it means that every human being knows what is good for him, respects what is good for others, and builds relationships in which the flourishing of one party is not founded upon the ruin of another.
When a person reaches this level of awareness, love becomes a choice rather than compulsion, giving becomes participation rather than forced sacrifice, and freedom becomes the foundation of every relationship rather than a threat to it.
Justice does not begin when a person abandons himself. Rather, it begins when he truly knows himself, grants himself his rightful due, grants others their rights, without injustice, without exploitation, and without making his own prosperity dependent upon the collapse of someone else.
Thus, understanding one's true interest is not a call to selfishness, but a path toward liberation from injustice and toward building a world in which relationships are founded upon awareness, complementarity, and mutual benefit rather than ignorance, forced sacrifice, and the endless production of victims and oppressors.
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