For selfish reasons - the discussion continued

"We don't call the man living in a cave selfish for not providing anything to
society, but we call the individual on welfare selfish, because we pay for it."

You could argue, as the author herself did, that this is a bit roughly hewn. Perhaps it is. But I post it because I think it also makes a great ancillary point. And that is that in a world ruled by a selfish ruler, whether you were a janitor, Mother Teresa, an astronaut, Bill Gates, or Madame Curie wouldn't matter.

For the sake of ease, let us concede that all added to, or at the very least didn't detract from, society. They lived their lives as they saw fit. Selfishness virtually requires at least a minimally productive life becuase there is little in the world more selfish than being extremely good at what you do. In 99% of cases, that takes a lot of time and investment spent on yourself.

Perhaps the one exception to the list would be Mother Teresa. It's best we don't go too far down that path, but suffice to say that for every single giving act Mother Teresa committed, there was a receiving act on the other end. Potential for a balanced ledger. Perhaps the giving multiplied and outweighed the taking. Perhaps.

I've now completely lost where I was going with this. I warned you not to go too far down the Mother Teresa path. Now you've gone and gotten us entirely lost in this deserted wood. And its dark. Oddly dark. Creepily dark.

And are those the red eyes of a selfish person I see...