Random Rambles: Generosity

One thing that present-day civilization seems to lack is simple generosity. It's rare to see a simple hello or smile from a random passerby, much less an Act of Random Kindness™. What happens is that we carry on, reluctant to enter a complete stranger's life by doing a simple task. This social mold of ours that we carve for ourselves dictates how we will act around others. We pretty much state how we will act around others based on how most people act and thus have this cold indifference to other people unless interaction has already been initiated where we keep judgments to ourselves while maintaining a pleasant facade to create this friendly illusion. Sure, many people do genuinely make attempts to creating a friendly face for a stranger just because it's part of their personality, but most people merely act kind for the time they have to.

Generosity is defined as the quality of being kind, understanding, and not selfish. This goes against our innate human nature in which we look out for our self-benefit most of the time. But humans are also programmed to have a desire to help others but this desire is also selfish. The humans that want cooperation and help someone randomly are seeking to create a long relationship in which both parties help each other. Generosity in its purest for is contradictory yet many people do exemplify this trait. Generosity does not mean giving everything away as most people assume since it really means that a person who has generosity in his or her personality tends to help other people and can also include a person who generally understands the human compassion while also offering when necessary. Many people bash people who proclaim themselves to be generous for being "materialistic" but they don't realize what generosity really means. Generosity that involves giving people stuff for free is insipid and results in society eventually exploiting that person for his or her generous spirit.

But the idea of giving people things is also a trait that is included with generosity. Generosity has come to encompass the giving stuff away definition in our modern society and its the thing we think of when we first hear the word generosity. Like I stated earlier, generosity is inherently selfish if we constantly give stuff away since we expect some form of benefit for the act of kindness. Humans are driven to cooperate based on this idea of mutualism, that everyone can benefit from being so helpful to each other. Therefore, we are still looking out for ourselves in the end.

So what drives us to help strangers then? It seems weird that I would say that a generous spirit is selfish when random acts of kindness still exist to help people just for the sake of helping people. Well, there are two types of selfishness still associated with that: the first one is this sense of satisfaction one obtains from helping and giving. Bill Gates has donated billions to charity yet I doubt he would've done that if he didn't have this selfish need for the satisfaction that he's driving a cause that betters human. The second type is a reflection since a generous spirit wishes to see society bend to the generosity the person shows. In a way, the generous person wants to see society grow and become generous by the person's contribution. This is a narcissistic ideal since the generous person wants to see a reflection in society based on how the generous person already gave so much to help it.

Now these selfish ideals aren't exactly "selfish" as we understand it. But they still exist and they push us to do generous acts. So what happens when society does not want generosity? In America, we tend to enjoy exploiting others and exploiting generous people is the easiest possible thing to do. Exploiting a generous soul is a grievous act and ends up leaving the generous person giving up the generous act while the other party has temporary benefit. In this way, we see selfishness in our society through the cutthroat atmosphere of our civilization. Exploitation exists for self-benefit which means that the true "giving" generosity people like to see rarely exists because of the risk associated with giving.

So what happens next? We keep being generous. Whether we associate generosity with the literal meaning or the meaning it has come to encompass, we should take care to help others despite our cold demeanor toward strangers outside our tiny circle. Generosity is so rare that seeing an act of kindness is a feat in and of itself. Generosity is a trait that is elusive, even to people like me who know how generosity can have such an astounding impact yet are too afraid to deviate from society and be exploited. Generosity fully realizes the risks yet forges onward to reach out to the rest of the world in hopes humankind can truly be a brighter place.