Take a deep breath, now exhale. In the time it took you to do that it's more than likely that a life form became extinct somewhere on the planet. Plant, insect, or animal: life is dying around us on a breath by breath basis and we are oblivious to the fact. What does it matter if a sub-species of plant dies never to come back again? I could give you the whole "universe is like a spider web" argument about all life being interconnected and plucking one string on the spider web causes ripples to permeate across the whole, but to most people that still means nothing.

Why? Because human beings are as a rule selfish and we see everything in terms of ourselves. That's normal of course, all animals make themselves the centre of their universe, in the wild it's a matter of survival. What around me is food, shelter, water, or dangerous - how do things affect me and what do I need to do in response isn't even a thought process, it's instinctual and learned behaviour. The difference between humans and other life forms is our putting ourselves at the centre of the web has nothing to do with survival, and everything to do with personal gain of some sort.

Everything from our interpersonal relationships to the decisions we make regarding what clothes to wear are dictated by what gain we will receive from our actions. Will that person fall in love with me if I do this? By wearing these clothes will I create the impression needed in order for another person to trust me? Even the act of me writing out these words is being done for selfish reasons - I want you to react, or at least pay attention to what I've written.

In her latest book, How The Dead Dream published by Counterpoint Press and distributed by Publishers Group Canada, Lydia Millet explores the nature of human selfishness through her central character, a man simply known as T. We follow T. from childhood on, and it becomes quickly obvious that there is something pathological about his obsession with money.

He literally "squirrels" away his money as a child, carrying coins around in his cheeks for safe keeping, while stashing bills under his mattress. When his mother dared to remove the money and leave it out on a shelf, he was offended at how unfeeling she was towards it, leaving it exposed and vulnerable to who knows what deprivations. Nothing his parents tell him offers any reassurance that his money will be safe out in the open, and only the guarantee that banks are insured against robbery, along with coerced seed money from his parents, convinces him to open a bank account.