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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: People used to say of me that I was too individualistic. I must be
far more of an individualist than ever I was. I must get far more
out of myself than ever I got, and ask far less of the world than
ever I asked. Indeed, my ruin came not from too great
individualism of life, but from too little. The one disgraceful,
unpardonable, and to all time contemptible action of my life was to
allow myself to appeal to society for help and protection. To have
made such an appeal would have been from the individualist point of
view bad enough, but what excuse can there ever be put forward for
having made it? Of course once I had put into motion the forces of
society, society turned on me and said, 'Have you been living all
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