As illustrated by this raging debate between me and two guys at GiftHub. (If you want to get straight to the metaphor-gone-awry goodness, Ctrl-F “life partner.”)

Meanwhile, talking to people about my video game analogy, I’ve realized the biggest problem with it relates to the role of enjoyment. Enjoyment is the ultimate goal of playing video games, but not of charity. That’s because video games are about pretending to do what charity REALLY does (kill bad guys). Charity is enjoyable even though (in fact because) enjoyment isn’t the point.

There really is just no possible analogy that can capture how awesome it is to be actually spending my time trying to kill bad guys. Nothing else is remotely comparable.

“How does helping people make you feel?” That’s what I’ve been asked, and my answer isn’t familiar from any publications on marketing or fundraising that I know of.

When I was younger, I loved playing video games. Single-player video games, without anyone watching. I didn’t get anything for my virtual accomplishments – not appreciation, or respect, or friendship. I didn’t even get the thrill of being good at something, because I knew that most of my friends were better than I was anyway. I didn’t think I was good at these games; I didn’t think I was building up any skill; in brief, I had no ulterior motives.

I just liked killing bad guys. Well, more than that, I hated not killing bad guys. When Heat Man killed my guy and stood around smugly, I wanted to throw the TV across the room, and I couldn’t stop until he was dead.

What sucked about this experience was that it was all fake, and in the back of my head I knew that. In the end I felt pretty empty and lame. Enter altruism – where the bad guys are ACTUALLY BAD GUYS. (See illustration.) Sure, I don’t get the same satisfying explosion when they die … I don’t even know to what extent, or whether, they die. So you can think of this video game as being more in the camp of something lame, like an RPG or something. But it’s infinitely better because it’s real. I don’t care whether the kids are cute, or whether the organizations are nice to me, or whether my friends like my decisions. As with video games, I probably spend 99% of my time frustrated rather than happy. But … Malaria Man just pisses me off. It’s that simple.

I’d call my attitude toward giving straight-up altruism. I’ve heard people deny that real altruism can possibly exist, but I don’t think any of them would challenge my description of playing Mega Man, even once I specify that it was the desired outcome, not the feelings, that kept me playing.

There are a couple key differences between my attitude and the motives I commonly hear ascribed to donors. One is the fact that I’m obsessed, and therefore I’m not looking for a pleasant minute-to-minute experience. Charities focus on making giving a pleasant, immediately rewarding experience for the donor, sometimes at the cost of being really truthful and helping the donor to understand; this is because they expect their donor to spend a few minutes, or hours at most. (And that’s all they’ll spend as long as there’s no clear outlet for using their brain as well as their checkbook.) Another key difference is that I’m not looking to feel validated or important or un-guilty or generally “good” in any warm and fuzzy way; I’m looking to actually kill the bad guy, not just prove to myself that I tried. No matter how it makes me feel, a charity is failing me if it doesn’t get results.

I find most of the motivations that marketers attribute to donors irrelevant. Gaining appreciation, recognition, a legacy, a warm and fuzzy feeling, an ego boost, a thank-you note, a friend – I don’t give a crap about any of it.

A great illustration of what does drive me to give was written today, by an Ohio State fan. I have the same relationship to malaria and diarrhea – and generally, to the problems a species this brilliant and productive still hasn’t solved – that he has to Florida.

We’ve been accused many times (including here and here) of trying to take the emotion out of charity. That doesn’t make any sense to me – I can’t think of any reason to do charity other than emotion (call me crazy, but I’ve found that disobeying the Categorical Imperative doesn’t bother me).

It is true that we want to use logic, math, statistics, estimation, judgment, and every other tool at our disposal, to figure out which charities are actually accomplishing the most good, and it is true that we distrust glossy brochures with heart-rending pictures. That must be where the argument comes from: “Imagine,” says the Straw Man, “that you are considering two charities – one which is shown by charts and statistics to save 5 lives per $100, and another that sends you pictures of the 4 adorable, suffering children your $100 will save. Which would you choose?”

Well, Mr. Straw Man, let me put a question to you. Think of someone you deeply love and care about – your child probably works best for this analogy, but it can also be your significant other or just someone who is wikkid cool. Imagine that this person is demonstrating worrisome physical symptoms. Imagine that a doctor sits you down and shows you charts and statistics that suggest to you, strongly, that this person will die unless she takes her prescribed medicine. But the person you love doesn’t agree with the analysis, and doesn’t want to take the medicine. When you ask the person to take it, she gets angry and hostile; when you force her to take it, she cries.

So you’ve got your two pieces of evidence: the crying, suffering, and emotions of the one you love, vs. the dry charts and statistics that show you how to save her life. Which one do you trust? EASY. YOU GET YOUR LOVED ONE TO TAKE THE MEDICINE, EVEN IF IT MEANS CLUBBING HER OVER THE HEAD AND SHOVING IT DOWN HER THROAT. YOU KNOW IT.

It’s when we really care that we find ourselves trusting our brains.