The Potential to be Unselfish

This week in HUMALIT, we played a group game. We were divided into 5 groups, then we were assigned to 5 other boats. The groups would then vote for which group will get to the shore and which group will eliminate one of the people aboard their ship.

Basically, this game symbolizes the story of The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas in many aspects. First, the goal of the game was something positive - to survive shipwreck. It is just like the situation in Omelas; the goal of the people of the city is to gain prosperity, wealth, and peace for the city. However, the other aspect of the game which is sacrificing some individuals who had to jump out the boat to save the other people, is also visible in Omelas. For the sake of the majority of the people in Omelas, an innocent life of a child must be sacrificed. This single child must be deprived of the prosperity and wealth that the majority of the citizens of Omelas experience.

I answered in our paper that it is not worth it at all, to sacrifice an innocent child for the many, that it cannot be for the "greater good" if there is one, even just one, who is hurt and done evil to. However, through this game, i have realized that that point of view has become an ideal, an impossibility. It seems that humans are all willing to sacrifice other people just to give themselves what they want and need, that humans are selfish in nature. Everyone else in the class was willing to compete not only to get to the other side and survive, but also to beat each other for the sake of the plus points. Truly, we live in a world that lives by the saying "dog eat dog".  

No matter how great my ideals are, I am continuously being beaten by the innate instinct of selfishness in me... And it makes me sad. That is why, I am posing a challenge to myself and to my other fellow human beings: if selfishness truly is our nature, then let us defy nature. It might seem impossible, but then again, it seemed impossible for everyone to step on the moon and Neil Armstrong defied that common belief. An impossibility remains an impossibility, a potentiality remains a potentiality, an ideal remains an ideal, if we do not try and act to reach it. I think that in the end, we form our nature and reality. So why not try to start now and defy our nature of selfishness?