In certain situations, we as a species aren’t divided by gender, eye color, ethnicity, social class, religion, education or intellect . We’re divided into two phyla: those who give and those who take.
I can remember being a taker. It was decades ago before I wizened to the ways of recompense and retribution and how the two aren’t happy until they’ve taken their pound of flesh, gray matter or endorphins. Often times, all at the same time.
I have evolved into a giver who’s rapidly entering murky waters. I can feel the altruism draining from my soul and pooling around my well manicured feet, callous free courtesy of a one 22 year old Na Nguyen who now in Texas ” go by name Amber. You got boyfriend????”
I don’t like feeling this way. I am at any given moment, perilously poised on the precipice of the loss of my humanity mainly, but of my patience.. my time, and so much of what’s supposed to make me feel better, makes me feel compromised.
So, I ask a very direct question: who has the bigger problem here? Those who give until the font runs dry or those why helped the dehydration process?
As you ponder that query, I’ll add this to the pile of compost and kindling thatbis thieves composition. What we are missing in this world are generous givers who don’t care who take and takers heartened by the gesture who have to sometimes say , ‘no thank you’ with as much grace. There’s a right way to give. There’s a selflessness to it. There’s also a right way to take, by feeling gratitude and expressing it, not necessarily to the giver, but to the situation that made it all possible.
To ‘bless’ the person who had the intention to give and to good tidings to the taker who is ‘blessed’ to have been on the receiving end at a most critical time. And yes, timing is everything.
You know groovy Ghanaian/Mother Theresa vibe? Well, as much as I would love to be content to meditate for days at a time in a 4’x 8’ashram, swatting curry flies, I still like my ‘stuff’. Maybe I give for the wrong reasons and that’s why Incoykd e grappling all this. Perhaps I give to the wrong people. I’m not savvy enough to discern real need vs. real greed.
And then again, didn’t I in some way, teach these people how to treat me? Didn’t my ‘never fail’ and dependability rep hammer this home? Are these the last vestiges of Liberal guilt oozing out? Or is this a need to be liked? A willingness to pay to be popular? Maybe 25 years ago when Clearasil was part of my daily ritual but not so much now.
I would give because I could and I saw people with genuine need. Sometimes, I got ripped off, but it still felt good to give on my end. It didn’t feel good when my giving and their taking became a conditioned response, as Pavlovian as anything in the books geared for shrinks. There are those who expect the perks, the extras, the lagniappe, the sussies, if you will.
Which segues to this topic–all this anti Trump victory rhetoric is silly. So yes, what the world news now, Miss Warwick is love sweet love of course, but it also needs a soupçon of behavior modification. The world also needs people who desperately need to learn how to give. And care. And stop whining and quit pitting progressive sevulaists against traditional zealotry. If someone disagrees fine, express it, but when constituinslly protected protest becomes damaging whatever by rabble, have a real damn problem. If you’re angry, protest at the county clerk’s office, but you can’t get a new 54″ hi/def TV at a municipal building. If you have a problem, botevdomeibe in or out of ogffice. If you’re still not happy move, but don’t destroy. People who scream and shout for tolerance are often the most intolerant of all people.
“I hate Trump, He’s not my president, so thst gives me every right to take a trash can and throw it through a window and take whatever I want!” says the White Kids, the Black kids, Asian kids, the multicolored rainbow colored kids who were suddenly, coveniently feeling disenfranchized. These are the so called SJWs….’social justice workers’, they’re the who grew up with time outs, play dates and parents who were fanatically opposed to having their kids vaccinated. They insisted that their kids, especially the under achievers , be awarded simply for having adrenal glands. There’s no passing, no failing and never growing up and taking any responsibility.
Inclusivity is socially irresponsible. Political responsibility is lame. Being bullied is reprehensible, but not defending oneself is as well.
That’s why watching these protests make me shake my head like my father did, as my grandfather did, and like my predecessors, I’ve forgotten what’s it’s like to be young and idealistic. But even when I was a young idealist, I protested in my own way but I never broke the law. Because civil disobedience that involved damagingnodbperdin or property resulted in an ass whooping at the very least. I’ve always understood partisan feelings. From knowing a parent liked a sibling better then the other, the teachers’ pets, better athletes, prettier girls, thinner women and then I got older, I became aware of partisan politics. Can we be completely inclusive? No.
But getting back to givers and takers, I aspire to be a better giver; one that can dispense without building of any internal resentment. The world also needs people who know how to take. They need to say thank you, be gracious without fawning or deifying the giver, WHILE paying their debt by paying it forward. They must help others when they can. Fiscally or physically.
I have spent a lifetime giving more to relationships than any relationship gave to me, but I broke that habit in recent years. I’m in the process of learning a way to apply the same restraint in my everyday life, to trust that what I give, from my money to my time,will be used as it was advertised. In some ways I admit this with righteous indignation. I also say it’s an admission fraught with a little regret.
I hate that I’ve become so damn jaded.
Thank God I look good in green.
