Greedy Humans

Greedy Humans

Humans are, by nature, greedy and self-centered. Some try hard not to be selfish, but many others don’t try at all. Generous people will go out of their way to be kind and helpful, while others either ignore people in need or take advantage of other people’s suffering. We see a fine example of selfish people in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”.

            The couple in the story finds an old man with huge wings stuck in the mud. When they figure out that he is an angel, they decide to put him on a raft in the ocean with a little food. But when they see that the whole neighborhood comes to see him the next morning, they lock him in the chicken coop and charge people money to see him. They find an old angel and instead of helping him, they lock him in a chicken coop with no food to try and make a profit. Talk about selfish.

            If I found an old man face down in the mud, I don’t care if he’s an angel or not, I would try to help him. I believe that a lot of other people would, too. The couple just used him to get money to buy a new house. To me, that is just messed up.

            Humans need to learn to be more generous and care about other people. Would you have helped the old man, or would you use him to make a little money? A little something to think about, huh?

 http://salvoblue.homestead.com/wings.html