I am full of thoughts this morning; aching to write as I make my coffee. I was thinking about Christmas and family controversy. Issues thrive whether there is a holiday or not, but I think it is interesting how those issues are less tameable around Christmas. Anyway, that really is not what I wanted to talk about. What I was thinking about was what someone told me this past week. I was sitting in on a conversation about someone who is claimed to be a selfish person. The conversation was concluded with the comment, "She should think of someone other than herself. She should try giving to others and she would not be so selfish." I have been thinking about that comment for the past few days. I think that comment is very true. We can remove ourselves out of our head by giving. This liberation from inner-thought could surely be a concoction for happiness. The problem with this ideal advice is that not everyone has the ability to give.
What if a key element to being happy was to give to others? How many of us are excluded from this cure? If someone is constantly consumed with making ends meet, how are they possibly expected to give to others? When people are in survival mode, stretching to make ends meet, they are stricken with selfishness. Can you blame them? I think it is also very easy for this comment to be declared if the person declaring has never struggled.
Giving is more than handing a concrete object to someone else. It is the feeling of contributing to the whole idea, making a difference. Having the ability to give is a result of fortune. More than anything the act of giving shows the existence of choice. When someone gives they had the opportunity to choose. It all comes down to free will and having the ability to utilize it. As an individual if forced to battle through the everyday, they are unable to employ free will. This disadvantage inevitability hinders happiness.
1 comment:
You are so right about being in a position to give needing to precede the act of giving
but the parameters of position and giving might need to be defined; being in a position to give can imply the luxury of having more than necessary so that giving doesn't create hardship for the giver. But those in survival mode may be givers, may be persons who believe in sharing. Depends of what is being given, and on the value systems attached to what is being given. And does it matter how useful the gift is to the recipient? How illuminating?
And as you say, "Giving is more than handing a concrete object to someone else. It is the feeling of contributing to the whole idea, making a difference" And that still leaves opens what give can be, what difference can be, time, caring, sharing, attempting to understand other points of view? --I'm just at an obvious beginning of attempts to understand this well.
Those with very little material goods can still share (or give) something that may be uplifting to someone, if any struggle they are in permits it, point of view, time, effort, blood --a sharing attitude, a mind to be receptive to what is outside self? Can someone in survival mode make a difference? Can't someone in survival mode make a difference? What is required to make a difference? What kind of difference? (You've given me much to grapple with)
--how do those not in survival mode forge a meaningful connection to those in survival mode?
The Privilege of Giving is available for all of humanity; even some battling the every day can be fivers, are givers --giving may be a privilege of humanity, but I don't want to link giving to categories of humanity. A certain amount of selfishness is useful; I hope that there is interest in and commitment to survival, to strategies for being heard and acknowledged,
but within an enclosure system in which this useful selfishness comes with awareness that the need to survive is a shared concern and goal.
What your post offers is so complex!
Who gives? Why? What is given? To whom?
I haven't even gotten to happiness yet, and i don't think I will right now. I have much more to do with the idea of giving and position both inside and outside of Limited Fork Theory.
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