Why do we make the decisions that we make?
Decisions are made everyday in our lives: what we eat, what we drink, when we want to do our homework, if we want to go to school, etc. We all make decisions which in turn would benefit ourselves or if not for ourselves, then for others.
What sacrifices are we willing to make in our decision making?
It really is all about economics: marginal cost v.s marginal benefit. I could play my guitar until 6pm and spend the rest of the night doing homework until 1am OR I could do my homework now and go to bed early. Lets be honest... I chose to play my guitar because I believe that my marginal benefit exceeds staying up until 1am doing homework. Playing some guitar is better than no guitar at all; I value playing my guitar more than I value sleep.
To Kurtz, human life is not as valuable as his personal gain for power. He made a choice to do whatever it takes to gain power and progressively became numb to the ill-effects of murder. What I would like to know is what were the events that led up to his decision that power is more valuable than the life of another? How much dehumanization was he exposed to until he no longer felt uncomfortable being around it? How did he lose his reverence for life?
"It's not the circumstances that determine who you're going to be, but how you deal with these pains and problems that come your way..." - Mat Kearney
I couldn't have said it better myself. We all have a choice, but would we choose blindly, disregarding all the consequences or effects (positive or negative) that may come along with it? To what extent are we willing to go to obtain our wants?
What are we capable of and under what circumstances?
I'm not entirely sure of what my essay is going to be about, but I'm leaning towards choices: wants v.s. sacrifices. I don't exactly know where I'm going with this just yet, but I've got a couple of ideas I can run with which will help tremendously.
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