Out of generosity

One of the most sublime enlightenment that I experienced was going through the transformation about doing good deeds. Because our whole western society preaches the exact opposite of how real world works.

My first encounter with this concept happened while reading about the author’s remark on game of thrones. That he really try to emphasis  a theme and that this theme is what hooks the audience because it subconsciously mimic real life. The theme is: “No good deeds goes unpunished.”

People cannot differentiate between generosity out of an expectation for return and generosity out of abundance. For the receiver and all around good feelings of parties involved, you want generosity out of abundance because for the giver, the outcome doesn’t matter and if the generosity gets misused, the giver would not need to care as it came from something that is not needed by the giver.

What I’ve increasingly been realizing is that in the current society, the taker will often bite back either through flakiness (waste of time) or some other reaction in order to extract more from the giver. People cannot differentiate between giving out of an expectation for return or giving out of abundance, so they mistook both as a reflection of weakness and therefore, tries to take advantage of the giver.

What I’ve had to do recently is to save some sort of reverse stabbing mechanism to all my giving. So that when the taker decides to bite me as the giver, I will activate the reverse stabbing mechanism and hurt them. Some people understands it right away and stops, but some people are dumb enough that they do not make the association that the counter happens because they tried to bite and had to have it happen 2~3 times before stopping. Some just don’t realize that all future benefit can be withdrawn the moment they decide to bite. Which just means that there are people who kept on giving and turning the other cheek even though they were bitten… and this happened enough that the takers got trained to think this is normal.

But, it left a foul taste in my mouth and I have increasingly come to the realization that most people are not worth helping because of this messed up situation. Maybe it has always been there or maybe it is that I am in a better position to give now.

There are people that are labelled as “bad” or “evil” in society. I’ve always wondered if they are truly bad or evil. Because I am a “person” too and I rationalize a lot of my actions as justified because everything have different facets to it. That’s why I am fine with what I do and who I am now. I am not going to apologize for it and many people will get offended by it.