Thoughts on charity

Today I'd like to talk about a subject of particular interest to me, charity and, more generally, gratitude. 

Like me, you've all probably been raised to consider charity as both an act of kindness and pity. That people who did charitable work were, by definition, kind, but most importantly, powerful. We've all been raised to see people receiving charity as weak and pitiful. Weak because they need others, and pitiful because their state inspires pity that, in turn, incites others to give them. 

This paradigm has several issues, most of which you can already detect from the previous paragraph. I am not writing this piece to analyze institutions nor to propose solutions. I will not discuss charity from political & financial spectrums and how charitable work is integrated into the tax system. I am simply writing this to share a couple of stories that made me think about the notions of "need" and "gratitude" and how we perceive them, and how that perception could, in turn, be quite harmful to some and easily exploitable by others. 

The first story is a viral video I've recently seen about a chipmunk that was thirsty. It walked up to a guy that was walking around with his family, holding a water bottle. It asked for the bottle insistently and held onto the guy's jeans. the guy gave up his bottle and helped the chipmunk drink. It drank it all under the amazed eyes of everyone. Once the bottle was finished, everybody looked at him expectantly, but the chipmunk indicated to the guy to pick up his bottle and ran away into the woods without looking behind. 

The second story is from one of my favorite films of recent years, "Life of Pi". Spoilers ahead by the way. In the movie, the protagonist gets stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger called Richard Parker after his ship wrecks, and they survive together for a certain length of time and overcome unimaginable difficulties together until they reach a shore. 

Once ashore, the tiger looks ahead and goes into the jungle. In response to that, the guy weeps. When asked about it, he explains himself as follows: "I know Richard Parker's a tiger but I wish I had said, "It's over. We survived. Thank you for saving my life. I love you, Richard Parker. You'll always be with me. May God be with you". He was expecting gratitude and recognition, and without them, he felt empty.

Those two instances are interesting because they show that animals don't have the same perception as we do. We are born and raised to be grateful for getting what we need, to say "thank you" and bow down humbly. Animals seem to see it differently. That chipmunk took that bottle of water as his God-given right to drink, not as charity. Can you honestly blame it? water can not be owned.

Same thing for Richard Parker. the guy expected him to be waiting for gratitude because they helped each other survive, which is fair, but you can also argue that life is not owned. It is a divine right that is only given and taken away by the Almighty. From this perspective, you could almost consider it arrogant from the tiger to be waiting for gratitude, and you can understand why he walks away unexpectantly.

With that in mind, let's think for a second why gratitude could be harmful and at the same time easily exploitable. Gratitude conveys a sense of debt. The first phrase that comes to mind when thinking "Gratitude" is "Thank you", the second is "I owe you". This sense of debt can be easily exploited and lead to some highly unwelcome emotional manipulation. You don't owe anybody anything. We've all been in need at one point and we've all needed help. As long as you're willing to play the game right and lend a hand when needed, it's all good. You're free.

There's a song that I liked quite a lot back in the day. It came at the end of the movie "The butterfly effect" and it goes "Just take what you need and be on your way, stop crying your heart out". You shouldn’t feel in debt for getting something you need, and people don't have the right to expect you to. You should just take it, no strings attached.