WIIFM ?

This is a long standing question in my mind ? Is there a deed in this world that is "selfless" ? If so, what qualifies it ? I will play the devil's advocate here.

When India donates $1 billion to a world aid fund when its own 500 million children are suffering from malnutrition, I was wondering if this makes any sense at all ! Hold on, after all its selfless . Isn't it ? Fine, let me get down to the gory details now. China contributes $7.5 billion to the same fund. So what ? Its planning to increase it to $15 billion in a short while. That is awesome ! Na ... The reason these countries are playing the number game is that, there is a lot as stake here. The majority of the oil and energy deals from Africa, a major beneficiary of the funds,went China's way. The aid from China played a huge role say analysts. So is this "selfless" at all ? I don't think so .

So let me quickly move on to the "qualifier" thingy. In my humble opinion, when someone does something benevolent and he feels good about it, then even that has to be selfish. May be its a strong word, but that is the bottomline. So what exactly can we say is the yardstick for measuring this. After a fair bit of thought, all I can come up with is this : If some one does a benevolent deed and doesn't expect anything in return, that is selfless. Maybe it sounds dumb. After all, that is what the dictionary says. But the subtlety has to be observed here. When one derives happiness without running behind it, then that is selfless. I definitely am not undermining the effort, but all I am doing is questioning the intent .