Thursday19th April

I am constantly amazed at the selfishness of people.  It seems that we have entered into an era where the self-gratification of the individual is all that has any value.  And especially in the younger generations; and at my age most people fall into that category, where the pursuit of their own desires seems the over-riding imperative.  You see them everywhere, these young confident strident greedy egoists, who are well paid, well dressed, immaculately groomed and in hot pursuit of the latest styles and gadgets.  There are whole magazines devoted to satisfying their never diminishing hunger for material goods; I have glanced at them in dentist’s waiting rooms but they hold no appeal for me at all.

Of course these people are products of the rapacious capitalism that is engulfing us all, with fresh waves at present lapping our shores from the far east, which may soon turn into a veritable tsunami of selfishness, threatening to entirely overwhelm our traditional values of selflessness and altruism.  And where does it come from, this rolling of several of the deadly sins into one self-obsessed ball of greed.  One wonders which came first, the greed or capitalism, because the one feeds on and stokes the other.  It is quite hard to find anyone nowadays who genuinely believes in doing things for others rather than themselves.

But here and there we see signs of some people who are at least are tiring of the constant treadmill of work and acquisition.  As if any of it really mattered, when real friends and loved ones, especially children, are all that have ever mattered.  So, pause a moment in your rush of self-indulgence and think for a moment about what is really important in life.  But not for too long or someone might get ahead of you.