In the Great Sprint for Decency...
...the cost of being a decent changes with the scenario, but it still probably costs you NOTHING.
Welp, I remembered. I remembered that I had this thing. Joyous times. Anyway; we digress.
With the calendar seeming to whoop itself along its usual path, the onset of summer approaches. I, now approximately 2 weeks out from my birthday, only came to realize that the day was fast approaching as my wife asked what I’d like as a gift.
This question isn’t akin to pulling teeth as much as it is effectively being handed the dental forceps, and being told to pick between molars and incisors. Though I like “things,” I’m not too attached to them beyond their utility. For those of you that know me as a collector in some veins, I do try to collect that which will serve me while remaining something of note in my circles. Sneakers, music, mechanical keyboards (one of which I’m using right now) — all of them within that overlapping Venn Diagram of “you ain’t up on this” and “I use this everyday.” For comfort, for productivity, for pleasure and distraction; and when these things no longer meet those rubric, I look around for whom they should go to in performing the greatest amount of service or help.
When my things leave me, they always leave in great shape. I owe a massive thanks to Mom & Dad for imparting those oft-hard to center childhood lessons around money at a relatively early age:
Nothing is assured, so spend and save wisely.
When you get something valuable, do your best to protect it, so that it retains its value. AKA, “take care of your stuff, and it will take care of you.”
When something’s value to you has lapsed, but it’s still in good shape, if possible — give it to someone in need.
These lessons persisted and echoed throughout my lapses and successes with money, stuff, and personal economies. But when there was the eventual arrival to the last bullet point above, there was usually no conflict or haggling. I had taken care of something well enough that it would be able to serve a purpose for the next person receiving it. And in passing these “things” onto other people, I wasn’t looking to be repaid or honestly, even seen for the gesture. This was what I was supposed to be able to do — to honestly evaluate my situation and say “I don’t need this anymore; does someone else need it?”
Though my childhood wasn’t in the safest nor best places, I wanted for nothing. I had Mom, Dad, and an entire family who’d emulated this behavior and passed it along to their children, because their fore-bearers had done much the same — both for family and perfect strangers. Faith and it’s adages were present, but seemed to be more akin to an “Aesop’s Fable”-set of conclusions instead of something to follow to the letter. If anything, faith was a far distant consideration for the actions of giving something away to someone who needs it — the considerations seemed to only invoke faith as a exclamation in conversations (“lord willing,” etc).
And now, at the age of 40-turning-41, that path hasn’t been strayed from. My Dad, in all of his semi-stoic-but-silly wisdom said that “decency costs you nothing.” That people, in all of their backgrounds, upbringings, orientations, and inclinations, still deserved the base of respect and empathy.
Being kind didn’t mean being a pushover, mind you. This was the same man who said “don’t be tolerant to these intolerant motherfuckers, kid.” But it did mean that what that decency cost me was negligible. A set of glasses frames here, a pair of sneakers there, some free tech support sprinkled in along the edges, a warm meal, and yes — money, too. Even if it were a financial cost, that decency didn’t cost me anything that I wouldn’t get back in return decency.
So…with all that said, as Del the Funky Homosapien once said:
“Where did the humane humans go?”
(*ahem*…this seems appropriate to insert one of my favorite Hip-Hop tunes about this whole “goes around/comes around” kinda-deals…so lemme jump this in here…)
Where did this “empathy is a weakness” madness emerge from, and why is it suddenly associated with people who claim their godliness above all else? You’d look at people who seem to be so stony, harmfully stoic, and nearly barbarous about these simple abilities to be decent toward others, and ask — “what did this cost you?”
There’s a million terms choking these questions right now — the “male loneliness epidemic”, willful segregation, etc. A hive of buzzwording clouding what’s being so repeatedly stung, and the genuine issue at hand. The perceived “individual cost” of decency or empathy is seemingly oft too high for some folks…until they need the same mercy.
“Leopards Ate My Face” is the recent chorus for it, hilariously enough.
“The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them” is a Turkish proverb that almost hits the same notes.
People want community, but they want it as a border to exclude…until they find themselves excluded. Rubric dictating that the circle must grow ever smaller for “true” believers or followers; everyone else be damned. And when the “damned” get together to soothe wounds and build new bridges, all the alarms go up.
The old Black folks’ expression for this end of confusion is “can’t call it." The coin is spinning end-over-end into the corona of the sun, blinding how it will land and what its truest say genuinely is. And the cruelty and lack of common decency toward other human beings shrinks the circle a little further. And a little more. And then, a little more.
Certainly strange times when that smallest degree of mercy or decency is viewed as weakness. Or rebellious. Or antithetical to “the mission,” whatever it is or how vapid and self-serving it happens to be.
Even the decency costs. But it costs exponentially less to express that than to spin those same gears into frenzy trying to collate and weigh how being indecent towards others and “the virus of empathy” is somehow the true ill of society at large.
You’ll oft notice that the people expressing this sentiment are those with bullhorns and a bull’s wit — a charge at anything that “threatens” them. People appealing for equity, equality, egalitarianism, anti-racism — these are the true threats. The fear that the lack of decency and an ugly mirror from these past actions will somehow come to light as kindling for revenge from the most affected by it.
But nah; it doesn’t have to be all of that. The cost of decency where mistakes have been made is an acknowledgement of the error, and a concentrated set of actions to rectify, restore, and correct the behaviors. It can be uncomfortable (and will be at times), but the end result is a better square of the world, at worst.
And, at best, you’ll get the chance to put that decency back out into the world…and watch it come back to you when you need it.
America’s “rugged individualism” is cool, I guess? But it ignores one very simple truth:
Though we exit this world alone, our journey to that exit is alongside countless others who need our help as we need theirs. “I did it on my own” is still great, but it always makes me question “did you do this completely by yourself?”
And when the conversational answer is a “no,” I return to the same question:
“Will you help someone else do it too, then? Seems like the decent thing to do.”