Tuesday, March 11, 2008
kindred
As I continue to read Walden I realize that most of my thoughts on where culture is headed along with my philosophy on many issues Thoreau shared. I am a bit relieved to tell you the truth. Most times I think I am the only one who thinks the way I do. That tends to make me think I am one crazy and two wrong. I see so many things that are just wrong to me and I am not comfortable just deciding to think positively about them. It is dishonest to me and I feel like I am avoiding life to fit in. "how are you doing? great". A lot of people are not doing great unless they ignore 90% of the crap that is going on around them. The world seems fundamentally broken to me and going in the wrong direction. I see that have a few choices on how to deal with this fact. A.) Smile and focus on the few remaining positive things in life and do my best to get by meanwhile avoiding any conflict by not even discussing it. key word avoid B.) Try to live purposefully and figure out solutions or find some that already exist and were forgotten. Basically deal with life somehow so that I can look myself in the mirror even though I will seem like a complainer to some.
Anyway Walden got me thinking about a book i read when I was about 10- "My Side of the Mountain". It was later turned into a movie. Its about a boy who takes a sabbatical into the mountains carving out a tree to live in and spending time living off the land. He was inspired to do this while reading Walden.
One topic Thoreau rabbit trails onto was philanthropy which I believe could safely encompass charity. Basically it is so often misplaced not really helping the "poor" soul we intend to help. He was originally discussing his inventory of necessary supplies for living when he was side tracked into such an intense topic which is one of my traits. I am sure all of us has received that "well meaning gift" whether physical, spiritual or otherwise that has caused us more harm than good. I remember my grandparents bought me a trailer. It wasn't a double wide just a 35ft by 8ft trailer. They wanted me to have a place to stay when i went home from college once a month for Air National Guard duty. It was a nice thought but after I graduated from school I felt burdened because I wanted to get away. They didn't ask me if I wanted it. How selfish of me and how nice of them. Yah i know. My point is we are going to get "help" from others whether we want it or not. I hope we can all remember this when we are deciding what Christmas presents to buy.
It has been my long held belief that most times people "help" others to be a helpful person and not to really help. In other words it is for us not the other person at all. Does this sound cynical? The heart is wicked above all things. We usually buy gifts we would want ourselves or at least if we were them that we would want. This is true of other forms of help like advice. Helping others gives us purpose and that is not a bad thing to have purpose but if that is the motive hidden or otherwise then it is pure evil. At the expense of others and maybe what is the right thing to do we charge on "helping" people. Doctors take an oath to "do no harm" sometimes that means doing nothing. There is a responsibility when we take on the serious matters of charity. People's lives are at stake. Are we sure we are doing the right thing? I think we tend to take a lot more risk with other people's lives and problems than we would our own.
Anyway Walden got me thinking about a book i read when I was about 10- "My Side of the Mountain". It was later turned into a movie. Its about a boy who takes a sabbatical into the mountains carving out a tree to live in and spending time living off the land. He was inspired to do this while reading Walden.
One topic Thoreau rabbit trails onto was philanthropy which I believe could safely encompass charity. Basically it is so often misplaced not really helping the "poor" soul we intend to help. He was originally discussing his inventory of necessary supplies for living when he was side tracked into such an intense topic which is one of my traits. I am sure all of us has received that "well meaning gift" whether physical, spiritual or otherwise that has caused us more harm than good. I remember my grandparents bought me a trailer. It wasn't a double wide just a 35ft by 8ft trailer. They wanted me to have a place to stay when i went home from college once a month for Air National Guard duty. It was a nice thought but after I graduated from school I felt burdened because I wanted to get away. They didn't ask me if I wanted it. How selfish of me and how nice of them. Yah i know. My point is we are going to get "help" from others whether we want it or not. I hope we can all remember this when we are deciding what Christmas presents to buy.
It has been my long held belief that most times people "help" others to be a helpful person and not to really help. In other words it is for us not the other person at all. Does this sound cynical? The heart is wicked above all things. We usually buy gifts we would want ourselves or at least if we were them that we would want. This is true of other forms of help like advice. Helping others gives us purpose and that is not a bad thing to have purpose but if that is the motive hidden or otherwise then it is pure evil. At the expense of others and maybe what is the right thing to do we charge on "helping" people. Doctors take an oath to "do no harm" sometimes that means doing nothing. There is a responsibility when we take on the serious matters of charity. People's lives are at stake. Are we sure we are doing the right thing? I think we tend to take a lot more risk with other people's lives and problems than we would our own.
hd 11:51 PM