Skip to main content

Individualism vs. Selfishness

I have often seen people confusing individualism and selfishness, and using both synonymously. They may usually not accept it directly, but it is often clear from their attitude and mannerisms.The moment you drop a hint that you are an individualist, eyebrows are raised as if looking at a selfish person!

Yeah, both emphasize upon living for yourself, putting yourself first and all such stuff. But I believe that there is a fundamental difference between the two.

While individualism is about living for yourself without causing harm to or belittling others, selfishness is essentially living for yourself often at the cost of others.
It is somewhat like an analogy of making one line bigger (given two lines of equal length, drawn using a chalk). You can either make one bigger by extending it using a chalk ... or you can rub the end of one line to make the other bigger!

What say?
Ayn Rand would probably agree!

Comments

  1. Hmmm... like u said, the line of difference is quite thin, but it is there - a little blurry though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "It is somewhat like an analogy of making one line bigger (given two lines of equal length, drawn using a chalk). You can either make one bigger by extending it using a chalk ... or you can rub the end of one line to make the other bigger!"

    Nikesh, awesome thought and equally awesome post :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Nova - Yeah, the difference is somewhat blurry ... but only when viewed from outside ... but from other side of the table the difference is very fundamental I believe!

    @ Silencekilled - Thanks about this thought about the thought :)!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At

Cycle

After a failed attempt at jogging, I roamed about aimlessly when an idea struck me to have a ride in a cycle, couple of which is lying in the “recreational area”. I was longing since long to ride a cycle sans motor. There was no particular reason for this feeling; it was that just I wanted to have a ride. The 2-3 km ride was a tiring experience, especially for one who is having this after a long time; but I was gleeing all along. As an infant, I loved going about in a tricycle. Then I became too big for it and got a cycle. After several attempts and many falls, I mastered the art. I used to flaunt it in front of my friends, who flaunted theirs. As I entered teens, the bicycle seemed smaller; so I got a bigger cycle. As years progressed, I learnt to ride a 2 wheeler. Now I started to find the bicycle too childish for my tastes. I tried to reason out why I should get a 2-wheeler to go to a particular place. Sometimes I succeeded to get it, and sometimes I didn’t and had to go around in

The Shekhawati Diaries - Part 1

Since last few days I have been cribbing endlessly about being dumped as at a place called Jhunjhunu in northern part of Rajasthan, and subjected to the roughs of market for selling soaps, hair oils to tooth pastes and candies to toilet cleaners . It is one of the backward part of the state (and the state is considered to be one of the backward in India, a part of the un-famed BIMARU states - BIhar, MP, Rajasthan, UP). In fact this region is famous for its palatial havelis . But the foundations of all these havelis lie in the feudal system, which was quite dominant in this part of the country. However, there is something about this part of the country. Jhunjhunu, along with Sikar and Churu districts form a part of Shekhawati region. This has been the home of many leading business groups in India. Mr. GD birla was born in a town called Pilani, which is now famous for BITS, one of the finest engineering colleges in India. Ram Prasad Goenka belonged to this region. Biyanis can trace thei

Gunaho ka Devta

During last few days, I had a privilege of reading one of the most accomplished works in Hindi literature - "Gunaho ka Devta" . This was the first time I read a Hindi novel after being highly recommended by 2-3 different people. I was kind of compelled to read it after initial 15-20 pages which were largely in an unfamiliar territory of Hindi literature! It is a novel set probably more than 50 years ago, and is a philosophical cum love story. It is one of those books where I can't be sure about how I feel. It is an excellently written book ( ... or maybe it was the first time I was reading a Hindi book ... but probably this is not the explanation!) , with the entire spectrum of emotions thrown in generous doses. The scenes are recreated almost poetically, emotions mentioned perfectly. But at times I am tempted to question basic assumptions of it all. At times I am tempted to say that he is preaching many things which I don't believe in, which I find improper, but the

Survival

Dark clouds were looming at the horizon. In few minutes they would have traveled few miles in westward direction and came closer. This is not usually the scene at noon in the hottest month of the year. Dark clouds meant something ominous. Probably sign of an impending storm or maybe a cyclone approaching. Sea is a capricious lady. Bay of Bengal was no different. It was infamous for cyclones, and Orissa was often at the receiving end of nature’s fury. Ramdas was few miles into the sea. So were his brethrens of the fishermen community. There were around a hundred boats in the sea that day. No one anticipated the storm. So no one even thought of staying back at the shore and miss out on their livelihood of the day. Ramdas was alone in his boat. He owned the boat. His son helped him with his job. They managed to get enough as to earn a square meal a day. They had a good rapport with others of fishing community. But of late that relationship was breaking down. No reasons for that. Nor wa