That wasn't nice! I hear that from time to time. The funny thing is that they assume that I don't know that. I ask, excuse me but do I know you? Or equally, do you KNOW me? And btw, excuse me, but nice... why? I tell them that I am a nice guy (e.g. in my neighborhood, I kept alive many bums with the weekly allowances that I dispense to them.. for real) but I can not always be nice. I choose not to be.
When I see a bum, I don't go out of my way to go up to him or her and say, here you go my good man (or woman), I know that you need this $10 bill more than I, and therefore (hencewith immediately), I am going to be 'nice' (Jesus John and Mary, you need nice... don't we all brother?!) and give it to you (this paper) for it does not take away from my lifestyle but gladly improves your life today and for that reason alone my bum friend, I am giving money away. It's a nice thing.
When I give, I do it because I want to help and want to feel human by being human.
But in general, this below is the balm that I have prescribed for myself in the matter, manner, and the world of charity and "nice" whether it be with money or with words. It's from Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson (one of my Avatars circa 1860s)...
" Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold."
Mr. Emerson is not telling one to be mean but to be true to oneself. If someone were to say, listen here, everyone here likes the color yellow, it's our favorite color in this town and we want you to like it too and make it your favorite color. One can say alright, my favorite color is blue but I will accomodate yellow to be my favorite color becuase I don't want to rock the boat or one can say, I understand what you are saying but I choose to like blue instead of yellow for that's the truth and I can not lie to myself even if it costs me popular opinion or makes me seem steely. Now, a mature person will, from time to time, compromise on trivial matters and tell white lies. Truth sometimes needs to be drawn out mildly.
Yes, become a better person by becoming a larger person at heart. Giving (money, time or kind words) is indeed better than receiving. One's appetite for things are endless and one feels even more empty in the end. But by giving one fulfills oneself at the highest level (i.e. the spiritual). But never do it bacause you have to or somebody says that you should; but because you want to. Make choices. If one acts out of fear or by habit that is not moral. Morality is where one knows the bad but chooses the good.
There is an old samurai tale that I adore that follows this thread of thought-- making individual choices... not just giving into expectations. One day, a samurai caught up to his adversary who killed his master. They fought an epic battle. I'm talking, thunder, lightening, blood spewed on trees everywhere stuff. The adversary lost and was about to be killed himself. Then he spat on the other samurai just as he was about to deal him the death blow. Immediately, the winning samurai wiped his face and put the sword back in his scabbard and walked away!
Hmmm..why? Because he did not want to taint his act of honorific revenge with... a base emotion like, anger. He was sticking to his inner code. He was conscious even in the heat of battle. That's high level. Choices can be moral. Habits, by definition, can never be.
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3 comments:
Thank god for your beneign and constructive erudition Pierce. You are absolutely right. Didn't feel like a swoosh. I had a thought, an observation then grafted on someone else's writing who I admire to leaven it but the souflee per se didn't come out quite right. There will be hit and misses in my blogs. But yes, the best is when I do the whole thing myself with no extracurricular ingredients but that which is my own genius. Thank you Pierce. Your opinion particularly in the area of aesthetics (writings of course included) is much appreciated by this humble wood carver.
Who's this so-called "blog administrator" who deleted my comment?! Was it for correct spelling and appropriate sentence structure? Are such elegances against the rules of blogging?
(It would surely seem so!)
---- you, BA !
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