Selfishness is being concerned for oneself or one’s advantage and welfare regardless of others. Selfness is demonstrated when a person leaves and does not tell anyone where they are going. In Into the Wild Jon Krakauer tells the story of Chris McCandless’s selfish quest for “ultimate Freedom”. Chris is selfish because he takes his privileged life for granted. Then, Chris decides to leave and he totally ignores and blocks out his family. Finally Chris builds relationships with people, then leaves when they are no longer needed. Chris taking his life for granted, his ignorance and the fact that he is an absentee is why Chris McCandless’s quest for “ultimate freedom” is selfish. Chris McCandless was selfish because he took his privileged life …show more content…
If not for the reasons above, he was clearly selfish due to the fact that he made relationships with people only to leave when they were no longer necessary for him. On Chris’s selfish quest for “ultimate freedom” he had a tendency to form bonds with people and allow them to provide for him. A few examples are, Wayne Westerberg. Chris meet Wayne and Wayne offered Chris a job. Chris kept intact, even when he was not working for Wayne. When the time came for Chris to go to Alaska he knew he had a job so that he could buy supplies and leave. Another example was when Chris went to the trailer park. After just a week “a seventeen-year-old named Tracy, fell in love with McCandless” (44) Another example of how Chris selfishly formed relationships to leave was with Ron Franz. Ron had formed a strong bond with Chris. The first time Chris left Ron, Ron felt great sadness but when Chris called Ron for help, Ron could not help but be relieved of some of the sadness. When Ron heard Chris’s voice, “it was like sunshine after a month of rain” (53). Chris, did not feel this kind of bond though. Chris only needed Ron for a place to stay and a friend until it was time to go to Alaska. Ron felt such a strong bond that he asked Chris if he could adopt him. Then without a solid answer Chris “slipped painlessly, out of Ron Franz’s life as well… Franz became so attached to McCandless so quickly, but the affection he felt was genuine, intense, and
Selfishness is a disease of the soul that every person experiences several times throughout their life. To say that selfishness has never been experienced would be hypocrisy. To say that selfishness is a beneficial trait would be erroneous. Although as humans we lie to ourselves, there is no question that selfishness can make any person a fool. Being selfish consumes us and changes us into someone we are not. Whether it leads to getting people killed, losing love, or abolishing families, selfishness always leads to destruction.
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer tell the story of Chris Mccandless, whose disappearance and journey was inherently selfish. Chris’s mysterious disappearance and journey hurt many people close to him, it also inspired several others to do similar things, and they too ended up dead. According to his family, Chris always had the brash, selfish attitude that led to his demise on his alaskan odyssey. On page 114 of Into The Wild Chris’s father Walt is quoted saying, “‘Chris had so much natural talent,’ Walt continues, ‘but if you tried to coach him, to polish his skill, to bring out that final ten percent, a wall went up. He resisted instruction of any kind.
Society today is beginning to think more about themselves and less about others. Many people would desire to live a life solely benificial to themselves rather than benefiting others on the way. This is considered selfish, considering it can cause problems for others. In his book Into the Wild , Jon Krakaur portrays well that Chris’s actions made him inherently selfish. He created sentimental relationships and left a vast amount of them. Not only did he leave all of those people, but he left his family as well. Chris also threw away things that anyone would be glad to take. Overall, his journey was ultimately selfish and made things more difficult for other people.
In the brighter spectrum of Mr. Chris McCandless, is his deep and intellectual personality, shining through on most every occasion with cynical value or an interesting opinion every now and then. In Chris’s deep scholarly thought he decides to give up many things for his own self righteousness in attemp to make himself free of any evil or distraction as well as anything that may hold him down. As a younger boy in high school he proved his good Samaritan self by spending weekends taking to the the streets, spending nights with prostitutes, the homeless, and the addicts, feeding them and experiencing a little of what they felt. As I mentioned before he gave up what he thought would ruin his dreams and soil his life, he rid his life of luxury and wealth along with long-term relationships with people. As one of the things that he had apparently given up was the desire of sex and all of it’s evils, and proclaimed that his need was much to great for something so petty. Truly I believe traveling as a child with his family engineered a mind set within Chris that made him feel as if familiarity was just a weight holding him down from the flight toward his dreams. He also thought that being lost in such a superficial and trivial society could help no one
The ego is strengthened as the only source of survival by this theory; and the man who strengthens this theory is Howard Roark. Selfishness is not defined as the lack of care for others rather; it is defined as letting others decide for themselves. A selfish man is defined as a man who holds his “truth above all things and against all men” (678). Being selfish is the only way to stand alone as a means of breeding success and strength. Heroism is closely associated with egoism because heroism entails independence likewise egoism.
Although selfishness is crucial, numerous over-givers still believe that selfishness means acting egotistical and indifferent to other’s feelings and emotions. However, selfishness is not horrendous, nor egotistical because selfishness is an act of self-love. For example, Sandra Bullock may seem incredibly selfish for refusing to get married. Although she is not married, she desperately wanted children. Since Bullock wanted children, she took matters into her own hands and decided to adopt two kids.
Ayn Rand mentions that selfishness “is a task of ethics to answer such questions.” The meaning behind this can be depending on the situation a person can be considered selfish on bad terms or on good terms; as we need to observe the actions of the individual. In a situation where a disaster may strike, we tend to secure the things that matters the most to us. Our human instincts would be to survive and collect as many resources as we can. In the process of gathering supplies, we could encounter moments where trampling over people would occur. For those who are gathering more than enough for one person would be seen as greedy. Depending on the situation, the individual can be selfish to help others or the individual can be selfish to secure their own self-fulfillment. The person being selfish in order to protect their loved ones can be seen as morally helpful, as he or she is not being selfish for their own good but for someone else. On contrary, the person being selfish to help themselves would be considered to be a synonym of evil. Furthermore, when we secure things we tend to prioritize what we think is important first and don’t consider anyone else but ourselves. I can relate to this as I contemplated on an event whether my actions were unacceptable. When I was in middle school I used to babysit two little girls near my neighborhood. At that time, I was playing a sport and had homework I had to catch up on. Although their mother asked if I could babysit them as there was an emergency with her boyfriend; I refused to do so because I thought I was too behind in school with a test coming up. After I’ve finished my homework with time to spare, I noticed that I may have been selfish
Selfishness is defined as the stinginess resulting from a concern of your own welfare and the disregard of others. Selfishness, once passing a certain level, is seen as a character flaw by many people. Where does selfishness come from? Is it a trait in which as humans we pick up over time, or is it an animalistic trait in which we are born with and have no control over? Author Mark Sundeen tells us the story of Daniel Suelo, in the book The Man Who Quit Money. Daniel Suelo was a mid-aged man, who decided to drop everything and live on his own without the use of money; he would no longer live the typical American lifestyle and survive strictly on the kindness of others and the leftovers he could find in dumpsters.
Jon Krakauer, the author of the book, Into the Wild only know about Chris McCandless is an explorer traveling to Alaska search for himself reborn. However he isn’t exactly what he really is, but an ignorant, foolish, selfish, and misunderstanding of the world in which he lives. These words that have been used to describe him are based on the idea that he went on a journey to the Alaskan wilderness to seek his own revelation, but not having a firm grasp of reality, he senselessly died a stubborn man, the people mention that he was unprepared to go into the wilderness, didn’t listen to a more experienced person, broken several of state laws, abandoned his family and loved ones, and followed a dream that never existed. Personally believed he is an ignorant fool, selfish, and misunderstand man that throws his life away for nothing but despair.
In the book “The Wild Truth”, Carine writes of the abuse she and Chris endured that “compared to [their] reality, [Krakauer’s] book, and [Penn’s] film were extremely kind” to Walt and Billie (Mccandless 15). This is one of the reasons why someone may think Chris was justified in his decision to “go into the wild”; in fact, one could say that it was his parents’ fault for driving him away. It may be a valid reason for why he left his family’s home, but it does not really justify how he hurt those who he met during his travels. The people that he effected after his death, excluding his parents, had not wronged or hurt him in any way; therefore, it is still not justifiable, in terms of his actions after he left his old home behind. Another thing that should be pointed out would be his reluctance to accept help from others. In the film, he had little to no problem with staying with others for a short time, yet he would be extremely reluctant to accept anything that could potentially help him survive the wild. Due to this reluctance, he was very underprepared when he entered the wild and eventually he died. Even though his death may have been from a mistake he had made, if he had been better prepared or even accepted a bit more help from the people he met, he probably could have survived a
Some of the things that one does do not always mean they are selfish. Let’s use the movie, “I am Legend” starring Will Smith as an example. Robert Neville (Will Smith) lives in New York and although he had the chance to leave with
Selfishness is defined as being selfish. To be selfish is to lack concern for others, only caring for personal gain. Often, this is caused by lack of empathy, misinformation, or lack of information. The ability of literature to have us experience different worlds through different eyes is fairly useful for combating this. In fact, literature can shock us about selfishness, if not necessarily shock us out of ours.
Selfish by definition is to be only concerned with one's self for their own gain, be it by action or by motive. If one goes to the doctors because they are sick or just for a health checkup, they will remind you that it is good to take time for yourself. In this very fast paced world we are living in sometimes we just forget about us.
Someone who attainment others serve them and care for nothing but their own meets. The view of selfish is the basic understanding as a lack of value for human life. However, Why not have a positive definition too? The word “selfish” has been abused and misused. We have attached a negative definition to a misunderstood word. Not saying we should go out there not help others in need, because nothing more satisfying than being told thank you. Building up confidence from a single word that is meant to not care; caring for yourself and focusing only you, does not mean selfish. Let the word help you be yourself, feeling secure, loving each flaw, and being happy; all the negativity will mean nothing. Especially, people social media and magazines; carping someone’s image, saying their comments are meant to “improve you.” In addition, the English writing is still changing. Every year, there are words and phrases multiplying quicker than ever before. The words before are giving more than one definition; based on people’s views. Such as, “run” it has 179 different ways to use it. “Take” has 123 different ways to use. Now people are starting to use slang words meaning a complete opposed from a
James Rachel mentions two arguments made by a psychological egoist. The first argument is that every time you do something it’s selfish because you’re doing what you most want to do. For instance, you are being selfish when you stay back and help a friend study instead of going on a trip. Even