This exemplary human being has given away over $9,000 he’s collected through panhandling to a fellow homeless mother and child. When many better off people can’t be bothered with giving the less fortunate the time of day, a man who is scarcely getting by still find the means and the love to give to others. This is a very inspiring story. I especially like the news anchors statement towards the end.
Hat tip to my friend Ray for sharing this with me.
There was food left over from a luncheon at my job. I decided to take about a dozen bagels to give to some homeless people I often see while walking back to the metro. I came across a woman who was clearly malnourished. I offered to give her the whole supply, but she politely (and strangely) refused, and only with my insistence did she bother to take at least one. She did not want any more than that.
When I asked her why, she replied that there are other homeless folks that could you that food. That sort of altruism even in the face of desperation is Earth shattering. Would I have done the same in her position?
Love is a word
That is constantly heard.
Hate is a word
That is not.
Love, I am told
Is more precious than gold.
Love, I have heard
Is hot.
But hate is the verb
That to me is superb.
And love, just a drug
On the mart.
For any kiddie from school
Can love like a fool.
But hating, my boy
Is an art .
-Ogden Nash, “Love and Hate”
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
-Lord Byron
I’ve noticed how it’s typically far easier to hate someone than to love them. For most people, it takes a lot to earn their trust and love, but far less to earn their contempt and suspicion. By my own experience at least, it seems far easier to hate someone you once loved, than love someone you once hated.
Love takes work. It takes dedication and commitment. Sadly, hate works the same way for some people: they’re knee-deep in it, and it’s a full-time occupation. But by and large, hate is far more visceral. It doesn’t take as much thought to be prejudiced or intolerant. If only love and acceptance were as easy.
Then again, a lot of people fall in love pretty easily. One wonders if we’d call that real love though. But now that I’m getting off topic and going into semantics, I think I’ll stop here.
Whenever I see people passing by, whether as motorists or pedestrians, I sometimes wonder: who are the occupants of those vehicles? Where are they going? What are they like? We’re so accustomed to seeing a lot of strangers in our everyday lives, that we scarcely acknowledge them as fellow human beings, with their own stories, personalities, and histories.
It’s hard to remember that we share this planet with seven billion people just like us, with their own fears, dreams, experiences, and beliefs. People who are living out their narratives at this very moment; some of their stories ending, others just beginning.
This reflection was brought upon by the work of one enterprising and creative photographer, who decided to stand on a bridge and take pictures of the various migrant workers passing underneath in their iconic pick-up trucks. Here’s just a sample:
These are the people that are often behind the scenes, raising our children, caring for our elderly and infirm, and picking our produce. They have stories of their own, mostly of tragedy, hardship, and perseverance. I wonder what they’re all like in person. What kind of perspectives would they give me?
In my lifetime, there have been few experiences as pleasant and gratifying as the moment when strangers become acquaintances or friends. Unlike for most of human history, we now live in a world where we come into constant contact with unfamiliar human beings. In our lifetimes, we interact with tens of thousands of different people a year – if not more – whereas most humans who have ever lived rarely knew of anyone else’s existence outside of their tiny and insular community.
The internet has radically amplified this trend, granting us the unprecedented ability to contact people from across the world. The once imposing scale of time and distance are being increasingly eroded. I can now establish a companionship with people who I have never physically met, and I would have otherwise never known these individuals existed had it not been for the web.
I love meeting new people and establishing new bonds. I love the feeling of connecting with a person on a deeper level, whether it’s through a shared interest or activity, or by empathizing with a more personal experience or feeling. It makes me feel less lonely, and opens me up to experiences, ideas, and perspectives I would otherwise have never known.
We often go about our daily routine without ever thinking much about the people who surround us, who are engaging in the same day-to-day activities as we are. Who are those individuals waiting in line with me? Or those people driving by in all those cars? Where are they going and why? What are their dreams and ambitions? What are there story?
Indeed, it’s hard to realize that as we go about our lives, billions of other individuals just like us are doing the same. They all have a story that they’re living out. They all have fears, desires, ideas, and experiences. The majority of them wants and need companionship too. They need that bond with other humans, whether it’s a friendly associate or an intimate lover. We all need someone in some way.
Going to any social setting – a party or classroom or department store – I always feel that latent sense of interconnection that pervades all collective gatherings; that palpable sense that any moment, I can create a bond with someone by recognizing their mutual humanity and engaging in conversation. It won’t always work of course, but the fact that it can is what excites me. The fact that I can tough another person’s life in some way, or visa versa, is what makes life great. Any stranger has the potential to be my next confidant. Any one of them has the potential to change my life.
These interactions could be brief or shallow, but that doesn’t diminish their value to me. Human interaction in general is the spice of life. It makes things more interesting. It enriches our worldview and our experiences. Most importantly, such contacts forge the ties that bind – the knowledge that we all share this world, that we’re all individual human beings who are capable of the same basic feelings and thoughts. This realization is that makes me a humanist, and what has driven me to care deeply about others I otherwise should have no reason to concern myself with.
I advise others to never pass up the chance to establish some sort of connection with another person – the store cashier, the person stuck in line with you, friend of a friend you meet at a party; make an opportunity to say something nice, to find some sort of icebreaker, or to simply smile and express your mutual interest in their humanity. In this fast-paced and materialistic world, it is easy to go about our lives without taking the moment to stop and just enjoy the company of strangers. Arguably, there is no such thing as strangers – they’re all prospective or future companions.
Every human relationship – platonic, romantic, and familial – encompasses two competing desires: for an equal partnership but also for power and control. This conflicting dynamic is unavoidable, as they are each reflective of a wider human tendency.
As social creatures, we innately want – and need – to work with one another amiably in order to be healthy, stay alive, and continue the species. Both our neurological and hormonal systems attest to this, as they facilitate and encourage intimacy, cooperation, and empathy.
At the same time, however, we have something other organisms don’t: an ego. Our higher cognitive ability grants us a sense of identity, purpose, and individuality that, while wonderful, can conflict with our collective and cooperative inclinations.
Thus every interaction we have with one another, particularly the most intimate, necessarily entails a struggle between these driving forces. We want to be in control of our relationships (and everything else for that matter), but we also desire the sort of equality and fairness that makes such partnerships thrive. And since the same goes for everyone else we deal with, we’re faced with a very complicated layer of internal and external clashes.
Again, we see this on both the macro and micro level: not just between individuals, but between societies, cultures, and the species as a whole. Human nature is variable and difficult to pin down, but it’s clear that we’ve always had a contradictory tendency to work wonderfully together (hence all the progress we’ve made in so many different human endeavors) but to also be utterly incapable of harmony and tolerance (hence why we still struggle with inequality, war, and other social ills).
Many other factors account for these failures of course, but the point is that we seem destined to fight with ourselves in trying to find a delicate balance between these two potent drivers. However, we have come a long way in this regard though: relationships, especially among younger generations, increasingly emphasize egalitarian values. War and civil strife are historically low, despite their continued horror. On the whole, we’ve gone father than ever in keeping our desire for power in check, significant lapses notwithstanding (remember, progress is never linear or absolute).
I think being cognizant of this dynamic is an obvious first step to promoting a cooperative and equal relationship with our fellow humans. But it will never be enough; it’ll take constant practice and a lot of trial and error to keep the equilibrium.
Besides, every relationship needs an element of both: we need those individual egos as much as we need parity. Compromise is the foundation of every relationship: when you love someone, you submit yourself to their needs, promising to do whatever you can to help them. But at the same time, no healthy relationship should consist of one-sided compliance. As much as we want to be there with one another, we also want someone with a mind of their own, and having entails dealing with differences in personality, desires, and the like.
This isn’t the case for everyone of course – a lot of people want full control, while a lot of others don’t seem to mind being obedient to their partners. But I think the trend is increasingly in favor of partnerships that offer the best of both worlds. Being able to live in harmony with one another without giving up your personal aspirations makes for a thriving relationship. There will always be a give and take to some degree, but that’s a necessary part of any close social interaction.
What are your thoughts?
Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar who was sent to Auschwitz for protecting 2,000 Jews in his monastery. While there, the camp administrators picked 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter escape attempts. One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was a Polish resistance fighter. When he cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe, who didn’t know him, volunteered to take his place, remarking that he had no such family to worry about. He literally gave his life for another human being.
In the starvation cell, he celebrated Mass each day and sung hyms with the prisoners, who he reassured by telling them they would soon be with Mary in Heaven. Supposedly, each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell, appearing calm. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards eventually opted to give Kolbe a lethal injection to empty the cell once and for all; witnesses claim that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection.
In the 1980s he was canonized as a saint and recognized as a martyr of charity.
I have long been convinced that finding love is more a matter of luck than anything else. Plenty of qualified people who try very hard to partner with someone fail miserably, while those who are apparently less-deserving (depending on one’s conventions of course) seem to encounter no such barriers.
Character traits that are theoretically more desirable, or a lack thereof, seem to have no bearing on one’s fortunes in love. It’s all random chance, a result of meeting the right person at the right time. There’s no anticipating when, where, and who that will be. We can determine probabilities of course, or study what tends to work, but in the end love isn’t an exact science, and never will be: it’s a gamble.
I’m reflecting on this because, by all accounts, I’ve come to realize that I am the last person who should be in a relationship – and I say this out of sincerity, not to garner compliments or reassurances. I won’t divulge personal specifics, but let’s just say that my various eccentricities and personality traits aren’t very conducive to a conventional relationship. My partner is exceptionally patient and easy-going with me, and were it not for that, we wouldn’t be together.
This recognition is what scares me. I’m incredibly grateful to have her, because I know I’d be lonely otherwise. I know that few women could be as compatible with me as she is. I don’t have the sexual and romantic charisma to attract women, let alone the relationship skills that would allow me to maintain a partnership with one.
Simply put, my track-record with the opposite sex is pitiful enough for my current (and thankfully fruitful) relationship to be a fluke – a testimony to my claim that it’s a matter of luck. Why should I have a wonderful woman like her when so many others struggle with loneliness, sexual frustration, and the subsequent self-loathing that often follows? How did it happen? Where does this seemingly arbitrary basis for attraction and attachment stem from?
This is probably just one of my many ephemeral views on love and relationships. Like most people I know, my thoughts on the subject are mutable and uncertain, largely based on the vagaries of my mood and my current relationship status (i.e. involuntarily single people may be more cynical in their assessment than the happily taken). I’m sure I’ll have some other outlook on it, only to come back to this at a later date, and so on and so forth.
I don’t think any objective, universally agreed upon standard towards love exists, as it’s all based on one’s personal encounters and observations – my take is hardly authoritative, so don’t take what I say to be irrefutable. Thus, I’d like to hear your own accounts. Do you agree with my current point of view? If not, what’s your take? What are your experiences?
As pretty much everyone knows by now, relations between Israel and Iran are at an all time low, even by their usually grim standards. Though the entire issues has been greatly sensationalism - by media, politicians, and even the general public – a confrontation of some sort can’t be ruled out.
Indeed, it’s arguably already begun, albeit covertly – several Iranian scientists connected to the nuclear program have been assassinated, while Israeli some embassies were subject to bombings a few weeks ago. Neither side has taken responsibility, of course, but we can be reasonably sure they’re involved in taking deadly jabs at one another.
In any case, I won’t be focusing too much on the somber political dynamics of this issue (at least not yet). Instead, I want to raise attention to the better side of human nature in all this: efforts by average people in both nations to express peace and solidarity with one another, in spite of the militant rhetoric of their leaders.
Start with this campaign, created and led by an Israeli graphic designer who’s trying to reach out to Iranians and assure them that not everyone is on board with all this talk of war. He wants the entire world to get wind of this, too, in an effort to dispel the fear and hatred that precipitate every conflict. You can see the introductory video below, and visit the Facebook page (as well as the reciprocating Iranian page here).
People are naturally raising questions about whether this warmness and good will extends to Palestine. It’s a good question, but at this point I’m happy to see any sign on amiability towards any group. If anything, perhaps this will catch on and start a trend for other conflicts? (it’s already spawned more than a few parodies).
Either way, it’s reassuring to see people take matters into their own hand, and not allow their governments to speak for everyone when they purport to represent the national interest. Politicians, elected or not, don’t always reflect the will of their people, no matter how much they’ll insist it (as they should, given that even authoritarian regimes with contempt toward their people stake their legitimacy on reflecting popular will). Governments and citizens are two different entities, and it’s great that the latter can now make their own voices heard.
Finally, I’ll leave you a more heart-warming kind of Israeli-Iranian relationship:
Love is all you need.
