Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Selfishness, our true nature.

I asked myself the question, why do I not go out and kill another person? Even though I'm not a religious person I believe myself to be a moral person, but is it really morality that keeps me from killing another person? Reason leads to self preservation, a potent force when decisions that may put me in danger needs to be taken. Even if you ask a person why he/she would not kill another person, the responses would be they are afraid of hell, jail, injury or perhaps the moral response, because it is wrong. But in times of war we gladly throw morality out the door in order to justify our killing. Even when our life is threatened we gladly throw morality out the door to protect our own dignity.

This leads me to think that all our actions in life are in fact selfish acts. Even if we look at selfless acts like helping others or love, it can be argued that these are selfish acts in itself. Why would you give your life for someone you love? It is because you are trying to protect a bond that was created. Even if you help others, you do it to get a warm fussy feeling inside. We only see two things in people, what we wanna see and what they wanna show us. With Self deception so rampant in human society, no matter how close we think we are to a person there will always be a infinite distance that separates us.

Any rational argument can only take place when it is based on a certain premise. Lets accept the premise that we are inherently selfish, what would this structure help us explain? If we look at western individualism, could there economic success perhaps not be because they nurtured the selfish nature of there population. Freedom of Self expression and self identity fuels innovation and diversity which in turns leads to great leaps of self discovery and awareness. These great personal achievements surely improves the welfare of the entire group.

There comes a point in life when you must realize that everything you know about yourself is just conditioning. It is the rare man who truly know who he is. Real self awareness is perhaps the closest we will ever get to some sort of freedom.

0 comments:


Blogger Templates by Isnaini Dot Com and Gold Mining Companies. Powered by Blogger