When The Self Becomes The Center Of The World

Individualism, Greed, and the Collapse of the Public Good

There’s a difference between self-knowledge and self-obsession.
Between healthy individuality and pathological individualism.
And the culture we now live in has lost that distinction almost entirely.

We are living in the aftermath of decades of conditioning that taught us the self is the only thing that matters. That success is personal, that wealth is proof of worth, that life is a competition to be won. That our obligations extend only as far as our individual desires.

But that story comes at a cost, and we’re paying dearly for it now.

The rise of self-centered greed, wealth hoarding, and cultural narcissism isn’t just unfortunate.
It’s a symptom of a deeper sickness.
And it correlates directly with the dismantling of everything that once served the common good.

A Time When the Future Was Built for Everyone

There was a time, not that long ago, when our governments functioned as stewards of collective wellbeing.

In the 1950s and 60s, ministries of public works across many countries were building the future together.
Not just for the obscenely wealthy elite, but for everyone.

Publicly funded infrastructure was being designed to uplift the population, roads, rail, housing, hospitals, public schools, dental clinics, research labs, libraries, sports facilities, and community centers.

The goal wasn’t profit.
It was standards.
A good standard of living.
Accessible free health care.
Free dental care.
World-class education.
Job creation through infrastructure.
A sense of pride, dignity, belonging, and purpose.

And at the center of it all was a social contract, spoken or unspoken, that we were in this together.
That life was not just about the individual.
It was about the public good.

The Decline of What We Once Shared

Then came the shift.

Bit by bit, decade by decade, that public contract was quietly torn up.
Not all at once, but systematically.

Public resources were privatised.
Civic institutions were defunded.
Working people were blamed for their struggle.
Wealth accumulation became a virtue.
And community was replaced with competition.

We were told it was about efficiency.
Productivity, Innovation. Growth.
But the truth is, the dismantling of shared, public owned infrastructure didn’t raise everyone up, it left most people behind.

And in its place?
Loneliness.
Isolation. Insecurity.
Uncertainty.
Exhaustion.
And a generation taught to believe that if they’re struggling, it’s their own fault.

Hyper-Individualism - A Social and Spiritual Crisis

We are now deep in the era of me first.
Of “if I have mine, that’s all that matters.”
Of influencers as moral authorities.
Of billionaires as heroes or saviours.
Of success as separation from community, from responsibility, from consequence.

But here’s the truth that still lives underneath -

Societies don’t collapse because people stop working.
They collapse when people stop working together.

And we are experiencing that collapse now.
Not because we lack money or intelligence or solutions, but because we’ve forgotten what we owe to one another.

This is not just political.
It’s spiritual.
It’s structural.
It’s ancestral.

What Self-Knowledge Was Always For

True self-knowledge doesn’t reinforce this collapse.
It interrupts it.

It doesn’t lead you deeper into isolation.
It reveals how interconnected your life already is.

You begin to see that your story is part of a larger pattern.
That your gifts are meant to serve something beyond your own comfort.
That your wellbeing is intrinsically tied to the wellbeing of others.
And that healing the world begins by becoming the kind of person who knows how to live in right relationship with it.

We don’t need more personal brands.
We need more public stewards.
More people with clarity, capacity, and conscience.
People willing to work not just on themselves, but for something.

Rebuilding What Was Once Ours

We don’t return to public good by waiting for institutions to remember their purpose.
We begin by remembering our own.

Self-knowledge is not a private hobby.
It is the foundation for ethical action.

Because when you truly know yourself, what you need, what you carry, what you’re here to evolve,
you stop looking away.
You stop hoarding your energy, your insight, your empathy, your resources.

You become someone who contributes.
Who repairs.
Who builds the kind of world they want to live in.

And that, more than anything, is how the future gets written.

Next >> Why Billionaires Are Bad For Society And Humanity As A Whole