Today, I was chatting with a friend and we were on the topic of beggars and whether we should be giving money to beggars. There were conflicting views, but mainly between that of "teaching a man to fish" or "giving the man a fish".
Naturally I am all for the idea of every man being able to fish for himself. I do greatly support of notion of being independent, if possible. But in the meantime, while the man is learning to fish, shouldn't we try within the best of our ability to provide for him? A man could take a much longer time to learn to fish than it would take for his hunger to collaspe him.
How about sympathy?
Although nothing requires the society to be compassionate, there is no philosophical justification for callousness. How does one live with the knowledge that one man is starving and has no food to feed his primitive need of hunger while they tuck into a feast of meat and wine?
How about the nagging knowledge that you may be cheated or fleeced of your money?
Humans have this age-old capacity to see only what they wish to see, while shutting out all those that they do not wish to see. And I myself have been guilty of that at times. So between sympathy and potential of being cheated, our usual reaction is to protect our own assets. We choose to ignore and walk away.
Ignoring the scene is our way of dealing with our own internal conflicts. We do this very well too. We adopt this skill in many different areas of our lives as well. *I guess we all carry the hope that the problem will just go away if we ignore it long enough. Talk about blind hope*
But, back to the topic, I do try nowadays to ignore my own personal nagging feeling of being cheated and give a token sum of my intention. Yes, sympathy.
And naturally the friend did pose this "And what if you realised you are just being fleeced? They were just playing on your sympathy?"
I could only verbalise my own thoughts on this matter as best as I could. There are a lot of external events around me that I cannot control. But what I can control is my own response to them. I try not to judge. I try to live honourably, in harmony with my own values and belief in life, and find peace through my own actions. That is my only business. How people misplace or distort my reaction is not my business. It is theirs. But I cannot, out of my own fear that my reaction be distorted, choose simply to ignore or behave negatively.
I really really want to believe that the world is a wonderful world to live in, and that there are goodness around us. Yes, there are inner demons always. But this is my way of dealing with them. Ignore the demons and act in a just manner.
Tough, but I am trying.