Is greed part of human nature? Are all people greedy, desperately seeking out the next bit of whatever it is that they hoard? Or is there a point where a man is capable of stopping looking around saying enough? Whether that collected thing be abstract like power, love or memories. Or if it is something physical such as gold, money, or yo-yos it certainly seems sometimes that no matter who you are, enough will never be enough for you. And yet a basic faith in mankind prevents me from feeling this way at least one hundred percent of the time.
There are points in time when I suspect that the feeling of an all-consuming desire is universal and inescapable. It brings to mind the images of certain communist leaders who have lost themselves in the power of the position corruption by their ambition and greed. I on countless occasions have declared myself fundamentally a communist. The writings of Marx and Engels do not paint a picture of what the word has come to mean today. They described a society much more like the Smurfs, sharing everything equally no one taking more than what they need living in peace and harmony.
The fundamental requirement for this to work is an incorruptible leader. Someone like Papa Smurf who can be trusted to watch over the people and protect them from evil wizards and their cats rather than Obsessively creating for themselves an empire that may never fall clutching each and every citizen by the throat and denying them basic necessities required for survival. This is where things go wrong. This is where human nature gets involved. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and to go with that there are countless anecdotes of seemingly incorruptible leaders such as Dr. King and Gandhi, for example, who went rogue.
Yet there are always the little things in life that make me doubt mankind’s evils. Random acts of kindness happen every day. People give money instead of taking. They save lives instead of killing. Why would people do such things if we are all fundamentally beyond hope? The only answer my relatively inexperienced mind can surmise is love. Love is the only thing that can grant the power to resist temptation. Love is the only thing that can end conflict. Love is the answer.
But when all is said and done the original question hasn’t been answered yet. Is greed a part of human nature? At this moment I don’t believe that I am capable of knowing for sure. Many before me have tried, and too many to count have failed. What I do know is that love may be the lens to find our answers. And maybe there isn’t just one answer. Maybe there is an answer for every one of us. Maybe we are all simply doomed to be crushed under the weight of greed. But with the power of love at my side, I couldn’t ask for a better fate than a slow and agonizing crush.
