Open Writing

Human kindness is forever waxing and waning. Sometimes it dominates our thinking. At other times it takes second place to other pressures of life.

We are so helpless at birth that we have to be completely selfish. We find we can get our needs satisfied by making a lot of noise. Luckily, most of us have about us wonderful people who give us unconditional kindness, always tending us like slaves and asking nothing in return. They are called parents.

That's how my life was, as a first-born, until a sibling arrived and I was told to be gentle to him, as I was stronger. I accepted that without question.

About three years later, my young brother often went out of his way to attack or provoke me. I have often seen the same thing happening between two brothers, or two sisters, whose ages are two or three years apart. The younger becomes keenly aware of inability to do so many things the older is able to accomplish so easily and, as we know, a feeling of inferiority tends to lead to compensation by aggressiveness. So my parents then told me that I must defend myself against unfair attacks. I was peaceful by nature, and did not want to start fights, but I used measured response and my greater strength to give back roughly what I had been given.

When we gained a sister, followed later by two more brothers, family relationships became less well defined but, in general, we supported and cared for one another. Later learning and training tends to expand this attitude, as we identify with others in our school class, with the whole school, with the local community, the nation, and with all humanity, as we are taught the virtue of caring for those less fortunate but with similar needs, as in the Good Samaritan parable and in other stories.

Caring for others takes a blow when we have to be told, 'We parents have provided all your needs while you grew and were educated, but now you must earn your living. You must work and be paid money, which you can then use to buy some of the things you need such as daily food, and clothes to replace those which wear out or are too small'. That struggle to earn enough money to keep you, and perhaps a family, can occupy all your skills and effort, seeming to leave little chance to help those less fortunate. 'Conventional wisdom', the arch-enemy of human wellbeing, adds, 'You must save enough money to keep yourself when you get too old or too disabled to work for your living. No matter how much you have done for others, especially for your children, you must not become a burden on the work force or on the taxpayer'.

We tend to think any problem can be solved by throwing money at it, and we are fooled into thinking that we can 'save' money by making tax-deductible donations, though the rebate is less than the donation we give. Despite all these delusions, human kindness is alive and well. In the Great Depression of poverty amidst plenty, families who had little shared their food with unemployed neighbours who had no income. In war, and even in peace, people risk their own lives to save others in peril. In places wrecked by upheavals such as the tsunami wave, people and their governments at once give the help most urgently needed, and volunteers with the right training go to perform even the most revolting tasks without regard to their own comfort.

When will humanity learn that a Caring Society, in which people ask, 'What can I do to help?' can accomplish so much more than one in which the motive is, 'You must compete, and make your economy grow faster than that of your rivals'? If the Caring Society does not happen soon, we will leave it too late to repair the damage to Planet Earth.

© Ken Sillcock