lauantai 26. heinäkuuta 2008

7 deadly sins: Greed



Continuing with the series of the deadly sins that I started before with gluttony, I now decided to write about greed. Greed, along with gluttony, is a prevailing sin in today’s world. We want it all and we want it now and nothing is ever going to be enough.

Greed can be connected to many things but most often we talk about it in connection to money and power. The desire to posses them turns to greed when even after you have all the money and power that you need to get by, you still want more and you’re ready to do whatever it takes to get it. Sound familiar? A fact is that the world as we know it is built on greed.

Wikipedia talks about how it is natural in every culture to want things. And of course, who wouldn’t want more money, better cars, nicer clothes and so on. But it says also that “Greed is the extreme form of this desire, especially where one desires things simply for the sake of owning them” (Wikipedia). By this definition, I think we’re all pretty greedy, eh? Though, it does also say in the article that greed usually involves acquiring the desired things at the expense of someone else’s well-being.

I tried to keep this text free of any mention of eating/food but I couldn’t help making a connection between eating disorders and greed. Aren’t EDs a model example of modern day greed? One desires thinness simply for the sake of having it, nothing is ever enough, thinness is acquired at the expense of one’s family’s well-being… Yet people with an ED are called sick whereas for example big bosses who make money by exploiting Chinese children are called greedy bastards.

Of course I don’t think that people with an ED are greedy bastards, I just started thinking about how weird it is that when taken to ground level, in theory you could come to that conclusion simply by using pure logic. I know… I’ve spent too much time studying TOK (Theory of Knowledge), it’s getting a bit too philosophical.

In my life greed shows its ugly head most often when it comes to school. I’m extremely ambitious, I always want and need to be the best and to be honest, I don’t really care who I push aside when it’s about my own education and my own goals. The thing is though; this greed is not going to last forever. I’ll get my masters degree and then be done with school. Maybe I’ll take my ambition with me to work life or maybe I’ll just be happy with my ambition satisfied… I really don’t know. I guess time will tell.

It’s greed that rules the world today, there’s no doubt about it. The question is, though, can it last forever? Can people want forever and never be satisfied? And what happens when we run out of things to want? Or is that even possible?

1 kommentti:

monica kirjoitti...

hi, i just found your blog and i really like it. also i see myself in soooo many of the things you're writing about, e.g. being (overly?) ambitious.

take care!