Is Survival Selfish By Lane Wallace Summary

The will to live is a psychological force to fight for survival seen as an important and active process of conscious and unconscious reasoning. This occurs particularly when one’s own life is threatened by a serious injury or matter. The idea in which someone who is on the threshold of death may consciously or unconsciously try to stay alive through the belief that they have a reason or something to live for, along with giving up on the will to live. There are significant correlations between the will to live and existential, psychological, social, and physical sources of distress. The concept of the will to live can be seen as directly impacted by hope. Many, who overcome near-death experiences with no explanation, have described concepts such as the will to live as a direct component of their survival. The difference between the wish to die versus the wish to live is also a unique risk factor for suicide.

What’s the best way to face a difficult situation? Day in and day out, life circumstances force people to live their lives differently than planned. Some struggle with this concept, never seeing the silver lining in the unexpected turn of events. Others however, live their lives as normally as they can, regardless of whatever they’re faced with. During the second world war, America was faced with the question of how to keep their country safe from enemies that might live within its borders. Although every American citizen is legally innocent until proven guilty, all’s fair in love and war. America saw no choice but to lock away immigrants and their American born children. This is detailed in The Train to Crystal City by Jan Jarboe Russell as

Emotions can be a war all by itself, when mixed in oneself it can be a “deadly disease” and could lead to life changing decisions. For example, in Seabiscuit Red pollard had this “disease”, as shown in chapter twenty two. During his recovery, Pollard was having trouble accepting he may never ride again, instead he waged a war inside himself battling this “impossible” outcome. Dimintrasting his passion to get up and keep on going even when people and even the odds tell him no.

Thinking ahead to what might come of your actions in the next few minutes or hours is crucial to understand what you should and should not do. If the following characters considered the short-term results of what they planned to do, maybe things would have turned out better. A good example of this is of Romeo, from the play, Romeo and Juliet. Tybalt, a rival of his due to a family feud, just killed Mercutio. Out of rage and grief, Romeo killed Tybalt. This action ended up getting him banished from the city, which lead to his and Juliet’s death. Another example of short-term consequences is with Jack, from the Lord of The Flies novel. In an attempt to flush out or kill Ralph, Jack sets a fire in the forest. This idiotic move ended up setting the whole forest on fire nearly killing everyone. If Jack took a second to realize what would come of setting the bush on fire, the forest would have not burnt to a crisp.

In the novel "In Cold Blood," Perry Smith committed many lethal murders while having no remorse. Some wonder if Perry's actions are due to his upbringing as a child, or the fact of who he was around in his life. Perry Smith went through many hardships in his lifetime. Some of which included torture by a nurse, all the way to being thrown into prison. Individuals are controlled primarily by their nurture rather than their nature, and I believe this is the case for Mr. Smith. Yes, Perry committed the murders of which were very vile and futile, but I believe there was a deeper reason for it than what was portrayed in the book.

Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air has many people making life-or-death decisions in a matter of minutes. In the midst of a disaster, many people will make decisions that are illogical.

The process of survival is a basis laid upon many significant factors and it can become an educational experience in which an individual may learn the skill of independent thinking and will inevitably gain new insights into themselves. These ideas are considered throughout the contemporary novel, Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen in which the protagonist, Brian, undertakes tremendous trials. Through their experiences, the protagonist obtains further knowledge about himself, others, and the world.

Sometimes the hardest decisions are the most important, and are the ones that shape and sculpt your journey through life. Whenever I am faced with a dilemma, like whether to start a new episode of The Office on Netflix or to proofread my global history essay, I remember to take a step back to better analyze the situation which, at times can change my perspective.

No matter who a person may be, everyone is faced with multiple choices from day to day. Whether the choice be life changing or what to eat for suppertime, there is an impact on the decision maker. Is there a line that must be crossed when making decisions in a life or death situation? In Octavia Butler’s best selling novel, Kindred, the main character, Dana Franklin, comes face to face with numerous decisions affecting her and those around her. In the novel, Dana uncontrollably travels back in time and gives perspective as a young black woman in the antebellum South. The time and place of which she travels to exacerbates her given situation. Each time she travels back in time, she is forced to make a decision. Through seeing her decisions in chronological order, the reader gets an image of how important decisions may be. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses Dana’s choices in the face of conflict to portray the impact her choices had upon her survival.

There are many examples of hard-wired human instincts that help keep us alive. Perhaps the most obvious case is the fight-or-flight response. When humans are faced with danger or stress, a biological trigger helps us decide whether to stay and fight or quickly flee the situation-- flight. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, we see how closely linked human nature and survival are. Elie Wiesel suggests that some people are morally better than others and circumstances greatly affect people’s behavior.

Another case was when Salva’s uncle was going to leave Salva, so his Uncle can fight the civil war in Sudan, and he overcomes this by continuing his life at the refugee camp, “He doesn’t want to leave me here, but he must fight for our people, I must not act like a baby, I must try to be strong.” (60) Salva did not want his Uncle to leave, but he decided to just accept the fact that

The wartime lives of the soldiers who fought in the war were in a state of mind of mixed feelings. Happiness and devastating are two adjectives that can describe the soldier’s feelings in the war because at one second they can be happy that they succeeded on a mission, but on the other hand, it can be very devastating because one of their own soldiers could have been killed during the war. Aside from physical danger losing one of your own soldiers or having your family worry about you every day and night are some negatives and unpleasant parts about fighting in a war. For example, soldiers loved ones worried each day, and hoped that they would not get a knock on their door by someone who was going to tell them that their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers have died in the war.

Richard Dawkins was born in 1941 and moved to England when he was nine years old. Dawkins was always interested by science, but not the study and meaning of life until college where he graduated in 1962 from Oxford University. Soon after he graduated he became a zoology professor at Oxford University and then later wrote his first best-selling book, "The Selfish Gene. " This book shows how life works on a biological level and explains how animals react and adapt to certain situations and environments.

I see how these events transpire as a character test. Who am I and what do I stand for? My friends, my relationships and my future are directly correlated to the events that will occur. Whats important to me is that I do what 's right strictly based on my values.

Keeping control of your emotions is important in a fight and can lead to a victory or a loss. Richard Perry learns this first hand in Vietnam. After experiencing the death of a comrad, Perry is already familiar with grief and its aftermath. Additionally, Perry’s own commander with whom he was close friends with and confided in, later died in combat after being shot. “Lieutenant Carroll’s death was close. It hung around our shoulders and filled the spaces between us,” (Myers 129). Richard has already encountered death, but not at the multitude that a close friend could bring. Confiding in Carroll showed his vulnerability