Selfishness

I think its only when one goes into society one sees how selfish we are. From prayer meetings to 12 step groups, from pubs and schools to multibillion deals in boardrooms or government departments – we are out for one thing and one thing alone: Ourselves. Capitalism is kind of built on it. Schools of economics are constructed around human needs. We want what we want. This is not a moral thing, and no one is getting judged. It of course has moral implications, but its thoroughly natural for any organism to make sure it is well, fed, loved, and safe. We actually have a well worked out hierarchy of needs that are the same everywhere, from Neptune to Dublin. But then really, do our needs get met by parents with so many of their parent issues? Or by society with its many upheavals and problems? Not really. Not always. Okay, rarely. The entire advertising industry is built upon the idea that our needs aren’t being met. Advertising is all lies, incredibly sophisticated lies (check out the show ‘Mad Men’ for a masterclass in how), but lies that make billions, if not trillions every year, simply because we feel incomplete. A lie is an untruth told with the intention to deceive. A hilariously funny movie called ‘Crazy People’ starring Dudley Moore told the story of an advertising exec who had a breakdown after his girlfriend left him and started telling the truth in advertising. ‘Volvo: they’re boxy, but they’re good’ or my favourite from the flick: ‘This film will not simply scare you- it will fuck up your life’. Very funny, but you had to be crazy to tell the truth. I mean that’s the punchline in the script. Very droll. Speaking of unmet needs, I often imagine the disappointment of any parent, having poured so much into a child to find it has turned into a criminal, or an addict, or a selfish, unloving, so-and-so, and because the parent themselves were incomplete, or had their own problems. Its kind of soul crushing. Of course to function in society we need to restrain and channel our feelings of incompleteness, a kind of social contract of selfishness. If we don’t we are in danger of becoming criminals or corporate psychopaths, or cut from the herd and left to die. Pathological selfishness turns people into monsters. Its a given, almost like the logic of relationships. There are several examples of such terrible people running vast corporations and countries and economies into the ground with lies and abuse, cruelty and monstrous selfishness, others killing countless and ruining lives of swathes of people, all because of extreme abuse and neglect and unmet needs during their own childhoods. I guess meeting the needs of others is not simply an act of love and charity. It makes sense. It makes the world go round. If we are well adjusted then things go well, we find healthy ways to channel our needs and we do well, raise a family, get a good job, realize our potentials and live until our time here on the big blue dot ends. People sacrifice so much to fit in, at times suppressing who they are in order to have certain basic needs met, because we live in a world that doesn’t do that. Many are shells of their true selves, working and living and going through the motions of existence, basically automatons, faking optimism and well- adjusted ness, at heart sad and lonely and humourless. Why? Because they are truly desperate to find shelter from the many demons that have haunted them, their family and their lives. Or sheer poverty pushes them to desperate obedience. I think its not just nice to be nice. It think its our only hope.