Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Is it something for nothing?
Out at lunchtime with my head up my ass. Old people and kids and kids and more people. Those teens they call emus. Or emos. Just because I buy the Big Issue it does not make me a saint. I’ve hugged a big issue seller before. That does not give me a godlike status. I do silly things for my friends, for strangers. Doing good things can be selfish sometimes I believe. I’ve wanted to move that shopmobilty sign for elderly drivers for ages, and today I got the chance. Yes it felt good. It’s fucking heavy. How do they expect them to lift it I don’t know… But then the shopmobility staff do run out to move it most of the time so they can park. Nice people. There’s a lady who works there, a great beauty, who’s confined to a wheelchair. Why is it so much more tragic when it’s someone good looking? Is it that good-looking people have lost so much more opportunity or something? There’s an old lady with a full beard I used to see moving slowly with her shopping trolley. I don’t see her anymore. Despite feeling for her I was also quite amused by her full beard. No one is guiltless. The Big Issue seller tells me today ‘thanks for your support’. And I feel bad for only letting him keep the change, 60p or whatever it was. I overheard one of the sellers say ‘you see so much ignorance in this job’. If you watch one for just five minutes you see how true it is. And still this chap made me feel good for doing very little… Massaged my ego for £2. Maybe he wanted to keep my custom. I lost faith in beggars quite a while ago, after watching scammers in places I used to live. I think I’m a bad person for this. ‘I am a genuine beggar’ ID cards will never be a reality. I used to be such a soft touch, tipping out my purse to men with dilated pupils to mutterings of ‘idiot’ behind me in the bus queue on the way home from college. How things are different now. Genuine Big Issue sellers only these days. I sometimes wonder, ‘what is a genuinely altruistic act?’ You would have to sever all feeling to make sure you were not doing it to feel good. But what else would motivate a human to do something for another for nothing? Well, apart from looking good of course.
¶ 9:27 pm 
Comments:
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This is a dilema that has helped shape many philosophical and social discussions, as ultimately, you can not be altruistic, by the very nature of doing something, you effect yourself. Interesting idea though. You are easily one of the most altruistic people I've ever met.
# posted by 
: 10:17 am
: 10:17 am
Yeah I know it bothers me a lot sometimes!!! :/ Thank you tho honey, even tho I do worry about why I actually do things... I really should just let it go and just go with it. Guilt sucks!
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I think, that with you at any rate, it's not guilt. It's a social conscience, easily mistaken for guilt when there are so few people out there with a social conscience. But even if it does make you feel good, so what? Isn't that just a happy by-product, I mean after all, the good deed is still done, and isn't that most important?
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# posted by : 9:22 am
: 9:22 am<< Home
