The Nature of Selfishness

It is difficult for me to decide whether it is in our nature to know and want ownership. I have often stated that it is man’s nature to be selfish and therefore this is why capitalism has become so popular. As of lately I have started to rethink the concept that selfishness is innately within humans. My reasoning lies in the belief that it is not our nature but a deeply routed adaptation which has been slowing building over time creating the very civilization we live in today.

I have always or as long as I could gather my own thoughts, subscribed to the idea that our hierarchy of needs is cyclical not triangle or in a pyramid since. For example in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs he first places physical needs such as hunger and thirst. Followed by safety and security needs such as shelter and protection. Followed by social needs, sense of belonging, and love. Followed by self esteem needs such as recognition and status and then at the very top which is reached by very few humans, self actualization. My belief is that in self actualization you realize that your needs don’t truly matter.

According to Maslow when a person reaches self actualization it means they have become all that they are capable of becoming. All motivation has lead them to a peak. But where do you go from that peak? I believe that at your peak you realize there is and has never been an ultimate goal for one individual. While all your life you were lead around to believe that you must want to do this and you must need to do that. Society motivates you to act in a certain way.

Becoming self actualized you start the cycle all over again but this time instead of warring about ones own goals a person starts looking towards others need for fulfillment. This fulfillment would come naturally if we were not so lead by a certain culture. The reason I believe our needs are cyclical is because once a peak is reached we have no more introspection to do. It is all extrospection.

Through extrospection you are looking beyond yourself and towards other’s. Not in judgment or pity but in pure want or need rather to help, to coexist, as one.
This is why I believe that selfishness is not innate but taught. Throughout centuries of me, me, me lessons people have learned to focus on themselves without much thought of others.

To me not thinking about the well being of others is unnatural. We in our hypersensitive egotistical society have been taught to think about the betterment of ourselves. So many of us believe war is natural. I don’t. I believe it is very unnatural to want to kill another human being for whatever purpose.

Human life is the most precious of things, whether or not there is life beyond this,  which I would like to believer their is. As a human I carry the most beautiful burden of rarely being completely satisfied but it is within this bittersweet note that I understand how precious and ephemeral life truly is.

I believe the idea of not ever really being satisfied within this society only further promotes the idea that this culture is toxic and fleeting. Thankfully it is fleeting! I would gamble to say that since the start of Western Civilization there has been much debate over whether it was natural or unnatural. There have probably been several deeply individual revolutions which didn’t cause enough an uproar.

Well you need to yell. You need to express whatever it is that is within your mind. Because that is you. You are your thoughts and once you write or speak them then they are free. They are released to everyone to be read and to be heard. And throughout all of this we have learned that knowledge is power. So think about it. What seems to be bothering you day to day?

I watched the movie Storytelling and in it there is a line that says,