Forty-two

So I've been reading Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics on a partially voluntary basis. How pompous and fucking obnoxious does that sound? The first chapter is over and done with, at first I only read it to find the exact quote in which he stated that man is a poilitical animal. Nowhere did I find such a quotation but I did find that "man is born for citizenship." And that seems more or less the same thing, whatever, it's good enough for me.

The rest of the chapter doesn't deal much with the nature of man as it does with the true form of happiness. What the word really means, what it entails, and how one is to obtain it. I'm still more or less baffled, in that I mean more baffled and less sane after having read it. But I've made several conclusions and I don't know if it's completely rubbish or just slightly rubbish, here we go:

Man seeks ultimate ends in life, that is goods that are sought for their own sake, which are pleasant and beautiful.
The good man does acts that pleasant which in its nature are noble and virtuous.
The good man will always be happy because he will continue to do things that brings him happiness.

Aristotle goes on to say in section 8 that "Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant [...] the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good."

Suppose now that a person were to live doing noble and virtuous acts but he dreads doing them because these actions instead bring him misery on a personal basis, regardless of how much benefit it gives society and civic life. Here, this man does not rejoice in noble actions for its own sake. Who knows why he really does these things, because he's expected to do it, because he thinks it's what he's ought to do, because it's his job, because society forces him to do it, because he does. Does it mean then that this person is in actuality not a good, righteous, noble, virtuous person? Is he selfish for taking pleasure out of other acts that aren't as noble in nature?

My next question is whether society can ever be considered defective, that the problem therein lies not in the individual but society? Because we know that society is not always perfect, we know of many societies which are corrupt and oozes of unethical and irrational people. Still the convention is rule, so a society that is ridded with unethical folks can be considered an unethical society (wait.. can it?) But how then do we judge when it is the individual that is not essentially good and when it is the society that is not essentially good?

So basically I'm asking if we are selfish, and most if not all of us are to a certain extent, does that make us bad people? Even if we do awesomely noble deeds, inside, aren't we still our despicable, selfish selves? Isn't this just such a privileged problem for someone to agonise over? Like, ya know, poverty and junk. That's something worth agonising over I reckon... So now I wish I can just walk off into the sunset and contemplate my life and purpose and the meaning of existence as a whole but I'm not at the luxury to do that. And I feel like such a butt for even thinking about this.

[edit]
Silly me the quote I was looking for wasn't even in Nichomachean Ethis but in The Politics!