So being selfish means: thinking selfishly, feeling selfishly and acting selfishly.

 

Since human beings do not act unless they think they are right, to act selfishly requires you first to think selfishly.

 

This is good because as it turns out the thinking part of selfishness is the bigger, harder part of being selfish. That is, of being successfully selfish in a culture such as our American one that still promotes self-sacrifice as a cardinal virtue.  (A virtue is cardinal if its constellation of actions are calculated to obtain an unconditional value.  A value is unconditional if you can't have too much of it, e.g., health is an unconditional value, as is authentic self esteem.)

 

(As a point of contrast it is instructive to notice how this same structure also applies to Altruists--be they of the Liberal or Conservative kind.  To them self-sacrifice is a cardinal virtue because it makes one "succeed" at being humble--humility being viewed by the altruist pushers as something you can't have too much of.  But notice the lack of the desire to act, to take care of oneself, as one of the most salient characteristics of the truly humble, the meek, the ... dare I say  it ... the ... l..y ... no, I dare not because it isn't accurate, the accurate description is ... the actively unmotivated .  Humility is anti-motivation and will be shown in a later work to be a major link in psychhological depression.  Rather I should say, this is a hypothesis of mine--as in, those who "succeed" in being humble run the risk of also being depressed, with the degree of their "success" in-actually-being-humble directly driving the degree of their depression.  So that, if you are of a high enough degree to be classified by "professional" others as "clinically" depressed then maybe you should look to see if you aren't also "clinically" humble and if you are then maybe you should consider telling those (professional?) others in effect to, "kiss your ass" as you are moving out of their sphere of influence and seeking selfishness, like all good big human beings should.)

 

Being selfish and alone on a desert island isn't difficult.  There, survival is difficult and only the selfish survive.
 

Here on the non-desert island parts of Planet Earth being successfully selfish is an achievement.

 

A big achievment.

 

Though there are no recorded cases--to my knowledge--of people being murdered because they are openly objectivisimly selfish as there are recorded cases of people being murdered because they are gay, being openly selfish is still a big deal.

 

Since selfishness is anathema to All religions because all religions promote some form of ego-destruction, some form of self-sacrifice and self-immolation, it is not difficult for the conceptual human being (which includes all of us individually) to abstract--as an essential fact--the potential for the "religious mentality" to kill that which is its antithesis--i.e., people who think selfishness is a virtue (i.e., me and, Yes, you too if you think the same).  Since authentically selfish people know that murder is not in their self interest the reverse is not true. (And if you are a religious person who thinks that if and when the chips are down you would choose "reason and freedom" over "faith and force" then perhaps you are not as much a person of religion as you let on.)

 

(And why do I continue to have such a difficult time getting to the point?  The point in the above isn't that it's not difficult to abstract the essence alluded to but that it is extremely easy to absorb the essential meaning of any religion worth its salt in faith to be: kill your ego, your virtue depends on it.)

 

(So that, if you too have ever had recurring dreams over a long period of time about you and your "friends" killing someone and burying the "body" so as to hide it from the authorities and they are on the verge of discovering the body and finding you out only to wake up and say wow! dreams sure can be weirdly realistic, thank god this didn't actually happen.)

 

(Maybe it "actually" did "happen" but not literally but metaphorically as in, you in essence, "killed" your own ego--or expressing it the Biocentric Psychology way,  severely disowned the (your) self.)

 

(It's not impossible that this could be true of you as it was of me. And I do emphasize the was.)

 

I am openly selfish now as all my published--read, public--writings reveal.  But if you knew me on a day-by-day--read, private--basis you would be more inclined to see me as a "nice"--read humble--guy.  And yes, that would be as ... in-with-the-ones who came in last. (That is, see the non-existent volume of my book et. al. sales over the last couple of years.)
 

But internally I am fiercely selfish.  And have been since 1977.  No, it didn't all start in a little five thousand watt station in ... rather, it all started here. [= direct link to my virginal lte, President Carter's National Health, in my HOW NOT TO GET PUBLISHED letters-to-editors lte's].

 

Acting selfishly without being internally selfish is not possible. Those who try it end up over the long haul being either super-sized altruist witch doctors, i.e. Religious leaders, especially Islamic Imams; and Social Metaphysical Power Seekers/Villains, e.g., Charles Manson or super-sized Attila brutes, i.e. Hitler, Suicide-Murderer Muslim bombers and the Charles Manson "Family".  Or vice versa: super-sized militant altruists, e.g., Charles Manson, Squeaky Fromme and "friends", Jim Jones, Hitler, Imams who are actual leaders of Countries or country sized factions or super-sized Public Intellectual brutes (BM's--salient characteristics of which still remain to be identified).  Or some calibrated, digitized combo in between--a "Combo-Nation" of some-kind on its way to being a super-sized some-thing.  Nations, remember, or don't forget, are made up of  lots 'n  lots 'n  lots of individuals (you's and me's).

 

(And so, since individuals are beings of self-made souls so are Nations the sole sum of all its individuals--pun intended).

 

(Also, for some reason nature seems to adore three things without paying attention to the concepts of good or evil.  The three things: small, big and integration. For example, a person who is small in stature (a midget) but super-sized in ambition is not small.  Just as a person who is big in stature but small in mind is not big.  Also, see the "size" of Existence--it's big. Atoms are small but since existence is the sum total of an infinity of them there is no smallness in the aggregate. Also, by super-sized negative effects I mean negatively affects the metaphysics of a segment of people many many many times larger than that affected by common criminals, be they burglars or murderers--though technically speaking, murderers are super-sized evil doers. They are super-sized evil doers because they cause the involuntary end of the most valuable thing in the universe--a human life--and they negatively affect the metaphysics of the remaining living.  Murderers start--it is another hypothesis of mine to be explored in future writings--by killing their own ego first.  And since I use ego in the Biocentric psychology sense of internal, subjective sense of self it follows that killing your own ego is internally the exact opposite of being internally selfish.  Being internally selfish means nurturing your ego.  For anti-nurturing examples see tough-man "no pain, no gain" type attitudes: e.g., Jesus' "Satin get thee behind me" and/or Roark's, "pain get thee behind me". {Yes, the parallelism is interesting, but not enough such to do a complete book. At least, not yet.}  If in your particular, individual psyche "behind thee" contributes one iota to your repression then it is bad for you because repression is bad for human beings.)

So, the essential point:  thinking selfishly is a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for being selfish.

 

Another necessary condition to being selfish is, feeling selfish.

 

I feel selfish when I successfully take care of and meet all my physical, psychological and spiritual needs.

 

Needs are the actual conditions of existence that we have to satisfy if we want to continue living.

 

Consequently, survival needs is redundant.

 

Wants are the form in which we individuals directly experience our needs.

 

Consequently, personal wants is redundant.

 

When a (personal) want matches a (survival) need it is an objective want.

 

When it doesn't it isn't.

 

Objective wants give rise to objective values give rise to objective goals.

 

Irrational wants give rise to irrational values give rise to irrational goals.

 

Goals are set by the volitional, reasoning, conscious mind.

 

Values are acquired by the same mind and stored in the subconscious, automatic mind after being used in the here and now to satisfy real time wants and in-the-process become (stored) resources for future need satisfactions. (Including the need to become your own "programmer" so you can meet nature's requirement to continually upgrade your own mind's "software"--that is, your own "psycho-epistemology").

In addition to being a storehouse of past value, the subconscious, automatic mind is (like) a target seeking torpedo.

 

Or you could say the subconscious is like The Terminator in the movie by the same name--the subconscious seeks goals because that is what it does.

 

A selfish person is one who makes goddamn sure the goals it sets are ones that when reached, satisfy needs--that is, satisfy objective wants.

 

We all know the cliché, make sure you want what you get.

 

The 'making sure' is what the thinking life of a selfish person is all about.

 

Thinking selfishly takes time and lots of it.

 

If you don't spend the time you can't own the products.

 

Time is the mind's currency.

 

So, Yes, it is true, money--spent wisely or foolishly--can't buy happiness, however, it is just as true to say, but time--well spent--can