I feel a certain symmetry between my needs and others' which makes me want to try to address their needs as well as mine. Thinking about this more has caused the feeling to become less and less abstract, until recently it has acquired motive power in my decision-making process.

:D Awesome! Did you just think about it more in general, or was there a particular kind of thinking about it that made it more salient to your decision-making process? If all it takes to internalize abstract (far mode) philosophical intuitions is thinking about them repeatedly then I have greater hope for a few SIAI Visiting Fellows' work on meta-optimized spaced repetition techniques.