there is no hope of a cure

Are selfish people rewarded, or is that just the way it seems? I know there is a certain stigma around the world selfish, that it is laced with warning that this is not the way people should be. But everyone is. Henry Ward Beecher called selfishness “that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.”

There must be a fine line somewhere. I have had countless conversations with friends in need, and the overriding cause of their grief has invariably been another behaving in a selfish or self-interested way. Selfish behaviour hurts people; are we here to not care about that and carry on regardless? Is selfishness what is destroying our race? William Gladstone thought it to be “the greatest curse of the human race.”

Dr Martin Luther King once said: “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

But can any of us be selfless all of the time? Would there be any point in having a self if you were not going to look out for its interests above any other? I suppose Darwin would argue that the very essence of our survival depends upon looking after number one, but is screwing number two the only way to do this?

I don’t have answers. I’m just someone who satisfies themselves by looking at the world and thinking: fuck – what a mess.  But has this world ever been populated by creatures that satisfy themselves by skipping freely in green pastures, helping old ladies across the street in their free time?

Of course not, not since humans have been here.

It is in the human condition to want to enjoy and get the most out of life, to fulfil our desires and achieve all we can achieve. Oscar Wilde believed that “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

Is this not the Western ideal? Is American foreign (and domestic) policy not founded on the idea that everyone would be happy if only they could buy their happy meals? No one would be a terrorist if they simply learned to suckle at the teat of consumerism, would they? Those who hate us for our freedom wouldn’t do so if they could just buy Nike!

But where is this getting our species? Lao Tzu, writing over 3000 years ago realised that for our evolution to truly evolve us we must: “Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.”

Is this possible in our day and age? Has this ever been possible for any day and age? Do we even know what plainness is? Do we know what true happiness is, outside of our own desires for more?  Greame Green didn’t think so, he said “Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.”

Can we imagine a better way for ourselves? Can we imagine a world where the needs of the individual are curbed so the needs of the whole can be met? Or is it best to follow the advise of Jane Austin and forgive all selfishness in ourselves and others, because “there is no hope of a cure.”