It’s easy to see people as just self-serving when it comes down to it. That people are somehow born with an instinct only to protect themselves and to place others, and other things, as secondary concerns.
It’s easy because it’s reductive. Because of course it’s not true. Closer to the truth is that we’ve all got an instinct to protect things – ourselves, our family, our community, our world – but that because of upbringing, situation or experience, people begin to focus the instinct on just one of these elements.
The world isn’t full of selfish people. It’s just that there are a hell of a lot of people who – mostly, basically – are protective, and are just trying to protect the things that mean the most to them. Or, crucially, to protect those things they feel capable of protecting at all.
For a time, I took a plastic bag into work. My way home took me along a stretch of road where bus stops and trudging schoolkids left a constant wash-up of casual rubbish, and as I went I’d pick out the recyclable stuff – cans and plastic bottles mainly – drop it in the bag and put it in my own recycling bins at home.
Sometimes I’d feel better because of it. Sometimes I’d imagine I was getting ‘a look’ from passing motorists or whoever, but I doubt anyone really noticed. Sometimes I’d feel like I’d actually made a difference, like I was protecting something.
