Portions

Day to day I find it quite hard to be positive about the future of the human race and the planet. I work in an office that has comprehensive recycling facilities and yet people still throw recyclables in the rubbish bin. It is a small thing, but this very fact is what makes me despair: if people cannot be bothered to do the small things that require absolutely no modification to their life beyond a little thought, what chance is there that they will even consider any kind of modification to their actual lifestyle?
Do people not let others off the train first before boarding because they have been asked to do so, or because they are so selfish that their pursuit of their own agenda must be to the detriment of everyone, including, quite often, themselves? Is humanity's greatest disadvantage shortsighted selfishness?
Selfishness itself has purpose. In crisis situations, selfishness is basically the survival instinct and is all we have to fall back on. In the fight for survival, selfishness is essential. However, daily life in the developed world is not a fight for survival, and if you think it is then you are probably the sort of macho twat who believes that they're actually living in a jungle. This is possibly not your fault, you might just be the sort of simpleton who mistakes what they see on television for guidance as to how they should live their lives. Or perhaps you think that the aggrandizement of selfish, thoughtless, macho behaviour by people who have failed to find a place in a developed society - let's call them Clarksons - is in some way clever. In other words, perhaps you are ten years old.
I am selfish, I like to get what I want, but I also like to think about how that can best be achieved. Quite often this will mean that the shortest route is not necessarily the quickest, or even that the quickest route is necessarily the best. Ultimately, the best option may be more complicated and involve more input from me, but if it's the best option, why shouldn't I take it. If I want to go to the local shops, the quickest option may appear to be to drive there, but if there's nowhere to park, then it could be more hassle than it's worth. Walking would not only potentially get me there faster, but would be better for me and the world in general. This may sound obvious as all hell, but it doesn't stop millions of such journeys a year being taken by car 'for convenience'. People's perception of what is most convenient is clouded by notions of luxury. Driving to the shops is luxurious because all driving is luxurious, this is what popular culture tells us; driving is an expression of our individuality, of freedom, of our wealth. Unfortunately, our measures of luxury have remained largely unchanged since the 18th century, when it was considered desirable to be morbidly obese. Furthermore, nothing in the fundamental structure of capitalist society is designed to work against this perception of what is desirable, indeed conspicuous, wasteful consumption and it's aggrandizement are fundamental to the 'growth' that is defined as a prerequisite for a successful capitalist society. Whilst it remains 'cool' to gain wealth and flaunt it, it will essentially remain 'cool' to be selfish.
As I've already said, I don't think there is anything wrong with being selfish per se, but if your selfishness is to the extreme detriment of others (i.e.you gain directly as a result of their loss), then I would say it's pretty bad. Of course people at the top of capitalist systems don't think of their accumulation of wealth as coming at the loss of others, they see it as gained fairly and squarely as a result of their genius. This is probably because they see wealth as an infinite resource that is only unavailable to others due to their lack of genius. This is to fundamentally misinterpret the nature of wealth, which, like any other resource is finite, and like any other resource, fiercely guarded by those with access to it. Not only do the rich tend to gravitate towards each other for protection and reassurance (a natural enough survival tactic), but they also spend money on the most effective propaganda machine invented for any system ever: advertising. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter what product an advert is in respect of, the ultimate message is the same: you will be an unfulfilled person unless and until you buy more stuff, and in order to buy more stuff you need to accumulate more wealth. In order to accumulate more wealth, you either have to work for the people who already have it or borrow it from the people who already have it. The rich don't need to force you to be beholden to them, they tempt you into it, and you submit willingly, convinced that it is your choice, part of your journey to commercial fulfillment. Thus we increasingly measure our happiness in possessions; we feel we deserve them because we've worked hard for them (which, in most cases we have) and therefore that those who don't have our possessions don't deserve them. Thus the concept of the undeserving poor comes into being: an other that we are entirely disengaged from because they are not like us, they are lazy and stupid. Usefully, this is a concept that can be applied wherever you are in the socioeconomic spectrum, as there is always someone poorer than yourself, they just may not live in the same country as you. The undeserving poor are even easier to be set apart if they are elsewhere; another country is preferable, but a ghetto will suffice. So if we can do away with things like the social housing requirement on inner city developments, then 'we' can keep 'them' at arm's length and therefore avoid any chance of meeting them and humanizing them. This is a point about perception and it works equally both ways: if those who are not rich gain their impressions of the wealthy solely from TV programs such as Made In Chelsea, it is easy to label them all as the idle rich. Thus by not knowing each other, we may label each other, demonize each other and blame each other for the state of the planet, when in fact we are all culpable. If we think about what we would do in different circumstances, would we be any different from whichever other we have demonized? Should we not try and consider the needs of others whoever they are before we make our choices? Even if that choice is just to let people off the train first.

Posterity

A few weeks ago I played cricket for the second time this summer. Much like the first time, it served to simply remind me why I avoided playing sport at school and pretty much ever since. I put this down to a combination of things: I am a bad loser, I am impatient, I have dreadful coordination and I don't like being cold/wet/too hot. This meant that as a youth I would give up on pretty much every sport instantly and with bad grace.
Not surprisingly, this defined much of my childhood/adolescence. I did not make friends with the sporty types, I hung out with the geeks and freaks: the interesting people. I actively looked for ways to emphasise my distance from sporty conformist types in all the ways that such teenagers usually do: by growing my hair and embracing counter-culture. The long hair changed with my changing tastes, but the sense that I was apart from the norm never did; what I call my 'indie sensibilities'. When Britpop went mainstream, I immersed myself in techno: that's the level of bloody-minded indie I'm talking about. However much I have integrated into society since I've grown up, I can never shake that sense of separation, nor do I want to. All people like to think they're different don't they, even when they're not. That is until we get to a certain level of identity. Most people are happy to share a common national identity, even if that is a less consistent identity group than most others. Many people are happy to share an amount of their identity with other supporters of a sports team, frequently donning matching clothes to further merge their collective identities. Oddly, many people consider this to be the behavior that defines them as individuals.
Needless to say, I find any collective identity larger than a few people and smaller than national something to be avoided. Also not surprisingly, such group identities usually only manifest around sport. Given all of this, I was clearly a prime candidate for the kind of skepticism that was in evidence amongst many of the population in the period we may now refer to as BO (Before Olympics) or perhaps more accurately BOC (Before Opening Ceremony). Like every other skeptic I've encountered, the opening ceremony was a kind damascene moment in which my natural cynicism was melted away by a warmth of feeling that seemed to wash over our (deserted) capital. I enjoyed every moment of the games in the weeks to come, although I didn't actually watch any sport, I just reveled in the good feeling (and functional public transport). In this (not actually watching the sport) I realise that I was in the minority; when I was at my second cricket match of the summer, most people who hadn't seen each other since talked about the Olympics.
Cricketer1: Did you watch the Olympics?
Cricketer2: Yeah, it was really good.
Cricketer1: What did you watch?
Cricketer2: Oh, I watched the cycling and the swimming and the athletics and some gymnastics, yeah it was really good.
Cricketer1: Yeah, it was awesome.
Cricketer2: Yeah, except beach volleyball, that's not a sport.
Cricketer1: No, that's rubbish. But everything else was great.
Cricketer2: Yeah, it was amazing. Imagine if it was always on, that would be great.
And so on. I relate this (perhaps not entirely authentic) conversation to illustrate just how much the Olympics changed our society for the better: many many men didn't talk about football for a number of days. Obviously the games achieved much more than this: undoubtedly they will inspire some children to become athletes, maybe some will be inspired by the opening ceremony to go and work in the NHS, maybe some will be inspired by the Paralympic opening ceremony to read books and be more like Stephen Hawking. The motto of the games was 'inspire a generation'. Hopefully that wasn't just 'inspire them to try running faster than everyone else', because that's a limited aspiration that is guaranteed to create more losers than winners.
I understand the need to get young people more active but as a youngster, team sports put me right off exercise for years. It took me a long time to find forms of exercise that didn't require me to associate with people obsessed with being better than me. I did eventually find such activities and I enjoy them very much, indeed it is the enjoyment of physical activity and exercise that led me to believe that I might actually enjoy playing a sport that I have loved to watch for many years. I was wrong. Or perhaps that was enjoying it, perhaps that is as much enjoyment as anyone gets out of playing team sports - I can only assume not.
I'll probably persevere with playing cricket once or twice a summer with friends, as I enjoy the peripheral activities and the company of friends, but I don't think there is anything that could have been done differently in my youth that would have made me passionate about playing. I had other interests, I developed other skills, I joined the the outsiders, and I'm glad I did, but no one was ever going to give me a medal for that.
The Olympics have been a great show and I think it's right that we acknowledge the monumental efforts of the athletes and the fact that the games bring the world together in a way that is genuinely hopeful. However, the Olympics are now over and it's time for us to get on with life, which, if you're not an elite athlete, is a very different thing from sport.