With my own thoughts continuously having questioning my understanding of this world, and Atlas Shrugged coming into picture, I suddenly find the world making sense to me. Now I understand why Ayn Rand says selfishness is a virtue as people may understand from her books. But to me it means a very positive and bright understanding.
Yes, selfishness is a virtue because we have to first and foremost consider our own values. What is of value to us. That is what matters. That makes the world seem right. Now from the world perspective I will explain what I feel the world sees as wrong with this. They see selfishness as keeping something from others, not giving. Ok, now they ask if you have in abundance you should give to those who do not. Now how does one have something in abundance - there could be three ways - through hard work, through inheritance and through looting.
Now if you are an honest person you would prefer to get everything you get through your own merit. Thats what always drove me. So what I get through my hard work I do not wish to give away, unless I see what I give as deserving. I feel that I m giving to someone something they have earned or will earn. If that is the case I do not keep tabs of what I give because its not charity, but something I feel they deserve. Or I give a loan based on faith that the person is honest enough to return because he is a sound investment.
Now I will club the inherited who doesnt work to earn a penny on their own and the looters into the same category, they have un earned money in their hands. They do not know the value of that money or expect money to come in the same means, through someone else's hard work. So they do not care giving it away in the name of charity to someone who may least deserve it. And they call that charity.
So now what you call selfishness is what is the life force of this world. The feeling that its your right to live and earn your right to live. Without this so called selfishness, human beings would have still never risen to anything of intellectual capacity except remain as savages. And funny enough its these so called selfish people who will support the selfless, unaware of it, while the selfless who are trying to not see this on purpose. So if you ask me, the selfish is right because he provides the livelihood for his own reason to live.
There is no helping the helpless. Excempting babies, children under the age of 5 and the senile and the mentally retarded, there are no helpless. Every other human being is capable of helping himself. So I say that you help those who work for it. If they dont earn according to their work, you take them away to work for you and pay more as deserving of their work. That is what you do which is right. Giving away money to a lazy beggar is not the right thing to do.
This is what I wish to follow as my principle too. Because if ever there comes a stage where a matter of survival comes into picture, only those who can help themselves will be saved. That, is a fact of life. Hence I feel from my sense of right and wrong, which I used to call human instinct, which in fact is not separate from my mind and my intellect, but a result of my understanding of this world, that if one does not recognise one's sense of self, then he has in fact given up on life. He is not living but is just trying to exist.
And living and existing are two very different things. Living is happiness.
Yes, selfishness is a virtue because we have to first and foremost consider our own values. What is of value to us. That is what matters. That makes the world seem right. Now from the world perspective I will explain what I feel the world sees as wrong with this. They see selfishness as keeping something from others, not giving. Ok, now they ask if you have in abundance you should give to those who do not. Now how does one have something in abundance - there could be three ways - through hard work, through inheritance and through looting.
Now if you are an honest person you would prefer to get everything you get through your own merit. Thats what always drove me. So what I get through my hard work I do not wish to give away, unless I see what I give as deserving. I feel that I m giving to someone something they have earned or will earn. If that is the case I do not keep tabs of what I give because its not charity, but something I feel they deserve. Or I give a loan based on faith that the person is honest enough to return because he is a sound investment.
Now I will club the inherited who doesnt work to earn a penny on their own and the looters into the same category, they have un earned money in their hands. They do not know the value of that money or expect money to come in the same means, through someone else's hard work. So they do not care giving it away in the name of charity to someone who may least deserve it. And they call that charity.
So now what you call selfishness is what is the life force of this world. The feeling that its your right to live and earn your right to live. Without this so called selfishness, human beings would have still never risen to anything of intellectual capacity except remain as savages. And funny enough its these so called selfish people who will support the selfless, unaware of it, while the selfless who are trying to not see this on purpose. So if you ask me, the selfish is right because he provides the livelihood for his own reason to live.
There is no helping the helpless. Excempting babies, children under the age of 5 and the senile and the mentally retarded, there are no helpless. Every other human being is capable of helping himself. So I say that you help those who work for it. If they dont earn according to their work, you take them away to work for you and pay more as deserving of their work. That is what you do which is right. Giving away money to a lazy beggar is not the right thing to do.
This is what I wish to follow as my principle too. Because if ever there comes a stage where a matter of survival comes into picture, only those who can help themselves will be saved. That, is a fact of life. Hence I feel from my sense of right and wrong, which I used to call human instinct, which in fact is not separate from my mind and my intellect, but a result of my understanding of this world, that if one does not recognise one's sense of self, then he has in fact given up on life. He is not living but is just trying to exist.
And living and existing are two very different things. Living is happiness.
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