Is Virtue Its Own Reward? Reflections on the Real Price and Value of Kindness...

 

L)) In My Own Words: Listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of a podcast episode I recorded where I talk about my experiences and how it changed the way I viewed society and the world around me for the rest of my life. 

"I want to be part of society. However, society must recognise my difference. Unfortunately, in spite of any rhetoric promoting inclusion, those who hold themselves to be the ‘norm’ persist in creating barriers that prevent us from being truly included. Our society , still silently, believes that the non-disabled, Maltese, Caucasian and straight man is the ideal […] this prize has reminded me that I am, and it seems, I will remain the ‘other’. For, even now, what I write may be interpreted to be the angry voice of that young boy who thought he was just like any other boy to discover that he must remain always an outsider."  

 

This week I have been doing some soul searching. I didn’t expect that I would react to this news as I did this time. Perhaps it’s because I’m more in touch with my thoughts and feelings. Indeed, the painful memories of a past long forgotten seemed to have come to haunt me again. I am sorry for being unclear but my thoughts and emotions are unsettled.

Let me take you back to a time when I was a boy of around 10. I was watching the local news in the evening when I heard the name of one of my best friends being mentioned. I admit that I was jealous at first. I was curious to know what had happened. I listen attentively… He was being awarded a prize for kindness… I listened more attentively now. A prize, for what? 

And then , I understand he was being rewarded for ‘helping’ his ‘poor handicapped friend’. Who? Then, it dawned on me as if I was struck by lightning. I was that boy he was ‘helping’. I was the boy described in terms of a ‘needy’ and even ‘helpless’. I felt that it seemed they were talking about another ‘crippled’ boy - not me! I felt betrayed.

At first, I was angry at my supposed ‘friend’. I was angry because I started to suspect that our friendship had been a charade. A ploy to be awarded such a prize or to look nice and popular with others. But, if I think about it, as a child himself, he really had no say in the matter. Undeniably, I did feel betrayed by my friend and while we sort of patched things up, from then on our friendship was never the same.

Why am I telling you this? The truth that this prize for kindness - also known in Maltese as “Premju tat-Tjubija” or “Premju Qalb tad-Deheb)”“ (Golden Heart Award) or “Premju Gwanni XXIII” (Pope John 23rd Award) is an initiative started off by a local NGO called the "Peace Lab”. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the values expressed by this organisation, including the promotion of peace and dialogue between people. However, I believe that the ones who cane up with the idea of awarding a so-called “Prize for Kindness” may not be aware of what impact could have on the children who are being awarded this prize and the child who is ‘being helped’.

I don’t know what my best friend went through then and what he thinks of this experience today. What I can say that it left me with a sense of betrayal and forced me to mistrust others who sought my friendship for a long time. You know it is said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. And I’m sure that my teachers and school had all the good intentions by nominating my friend. But while my friend achieved a certain prestige and recognition, I felt suddenly I was invalidated as a person. And the way the media portrayed me, again, was less than flattering. I was the taker and a burden. I knew that my friend didn’t see our friendship as a one-way thing. Yet, I was forced to question everything. Was I a ‘sacrifice’? 

Yes, it took years before I can say that I regained some trust. However, in spite of the terrible things they said about me. Defining me only in terms of my physical impairment. As if that was my problem. My curse. I have adapted to it didn’t I? Why do you need to deny that my body is part of who I am? Instead, you rob me of any claims to my individual identity. And so, deny my humanity. I know that these are hard words to write. But I can’t shout them out loud because I would gain nothing. For, even if we hate to admit it, such prizes only reinforce our social inequalities not just as disabled people but as human beings. We have to reward a friendship because we still perceive a disabled child to be always ‘less fortunate’. He or she is always taking. As if our friendship wasn’t based on mutual respect and understanding. As if we didn’t share our childhood together.

I want to be part of society. However, society must recognise my difference. Unfortunately, in spite of any rhetoric promoting inclusion, those who hold themselves to be the ‘norm’ persist in creating barriers that prevent us from being included. Our society , still silently, believes that the non-disabled, Maltese, Caucasian and straight man is the ideal. I am sorry to have to say all this but I can’t help feeling that this prize has reminded me that I am, and it seems, I will remain the ‘other’. For, even now, what I write may be interpreted to be the angry voice of that young boy who thought he was just like any other boy to discover that he must remain always an outsider. 

Today, I understand that we are all co-dependent. We all need each other in today’s world. By pretending to be doing charity by simply sending money where, granted, it is needed will not solve the problems of poverty, lack of access, food shortage and the many problems that we all must share responsibility for. Awarding a prize for kindness will always mean that one is, in some way, inferior to another. And, worse, the fact that you’re telling children that a friendship between a disabled and a non-disabled friend is an act of kindness is telling them that such a friendship is a sacrifice where one party is always the less important - the less of value. Have we become so desperate for kindness that we need to reward even ordinary friendships by painting them using our own narratives of heroes and courage? 

Now, my last thoughts. I know that I have used strong language here. But, honestly, I don’t want other children to go through my experience. Yes, I have learned from it as well. Yet, I believe it is diametrically opposed to the principles of inclusion I believe in. A prize for ‘kindness’ is also a misunderstanding of charity. Charity requires us to practice compassion where we help others not out of pity and because we think we are better than them. Compassion and charity are about being with another human being and looking at him or her as your equal. It’s not and should never be a power relationship.

 And what about the idea of rewarding kindness?

“Virtue is its own reward”!

At least, it should be!

 

Related Entries:

Painful Memories of a Prize for Kindness 

> from: Gordon's D-Zone

The True Meaning of Charity

> from: ZoneMind 

 

The True Meaning of Charity (Part 3)

GO TO PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3

As a disabled child, I was angered by people who thought they had the authority to judge who I was. Others who took it upon themselves to define me. To rob me of any claims to individual identity. I know it was wrong of me. However, given the oppressive ideas of who I should be coming from society, I rejected my body and attached myself to a false idea that I was “normal” whatever that word meant. This might be the only way I could escape from sinking into dependence or of submitting to a poor idea of what I could achieve or who I should be. Unfortunately, as we try to deny part of who we are - in my case, the body - we  are also denying to recognise our human reality - choosing instead the safety to an attachment to a fiction that, inevitably, creates dukkha or dissatisfaction.

 

However, before we can take the step and recognise that what we have taken to be “charity” so far has been largely a monetary exchange to calm our conscience. Our practice of “charity” has often been a way to escape from the reality of life and of human injustice. It may have been a way to avoid facing the person we deem to be “In need”. When, in truth, we are simply distancing ourselves because we think we are better persons and, in some perverse way, may even believe that the people going through hard times somehow deserve it. This isn’t real charity however. It shouldn’t be the intention of performing an act of charity for sure.

 

What charity means, according to my current understanding, is the act of being there with the other person. Not believing you are in any way better or more fortunate. It’s an act where you give yourself to the other, placing secondary importance to any differences that are imposed by society. It means accepting the person as a unique individual and at the same time you acknowledge the differences where appropriate, charity requires us to look at the other as a human being. Like us, vulnerable to the process of growth and decay, but also singular in his/her expression of humanity. Genuine charity cannot be separated from compassion. For, in a sense, charity and compassion are, in their true sense, manifestations of the human need to love and belong.

 

While false charity singles out the person in need as someone external to the ideal of humanity, true charity and compassion recognise that the ideal is flawed as it doesn’t exist in the real world. People are not healthy all the time. People get old. people die. And, as for impairment, many people acquire an impairment as they grow older. Thus, it’s the idea of a perfect, healthy and “normal” body which is, in effect, the abnormality here. No such persons who defy the process of nature exist in the physical world we inhabit. And, it’s time that we change our idea of charity from a means to appease our egos and forfeit our human responsibilities to our brothers and sisters, and really practice a compassion that recognises the singularity and uniqueness of the other and, yet, embraces the other as part of his or her own human family.

 

The meaning of charity is about being fully human and opening our heart and mind to others. Not for the sake of feeling or looking good. It’s about reaching out to the other without the shackles of prejudice and pride and vanity. It means being there sharing in the experience of life without imposing yourself on the other but listening to the heart of the other as a person first.

 

As HH the 14th Dalai Lama reminds us:

 

If you want to be happy, 

practice compassion.

If you want others to be happy,

Practice compassion... 

 

Only genuine charity and true compassion can guarantee long lasting happiness for us and to the world that surrounds us.

THE END

The True Meaning of Charity (Part 2)

GO TO PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3

I felt that this background information about my past is important in order for one to better understand the other side. That is, the side of the one “supposedly needing charity”. For, unfortunately, while, rightly or wrongly, many praise the efforts of those who help a particular cause, it’s often the case that those who are “in need of help” remain hidden or even distorted to pull at the heartstrings of potential alms giver. And while the media may attempt to reach out to the people that are facing difficult life circumstances, the lives of such people is often misconstrued to fit into the idea that these situations arise only out of misfortune and society appears to have had no part of the play in maintaining a state of inequality or poverty.

 

As a disabled person, I can speak of my experiences as a disabled person. At the same time, while I share my experience of disability with many other disabled people, my experience is also unique and individual. Not every disabled person may have had the same experience of a boyhood which included a conflict between the ideal of a mind persistently contradicted by for what was, for many, an abnormal body. These are the thoughts and feelings that resurface every time I am witness to manifestations of so-called “charity”. But, on reflecting on my life experiences, I realise that our modern conceptions of “Charity” have seldom to do with the idea of charity as it was originally intended. 

 

In fact, what “”charity” has come to mean today is a market exchange where people can calm their consciences by exchanging money instead of bothering to look at others (deemed less fortunate) as equals. In this, modern “charity” is diametrically opposed to the original meaning of a charity that doesn’t seek for its own self. Don’t get me wrong, money is an important element that can help people get out of difficult situations and live a better quality of life they deserve. However, what I have an  issue with is the intention behind the modern constructions of charity. Indeed, those society judges in need of charity are, in many cases, put across as undesirables, broken or wretched and “lives not worth living”..

 

CONTINUED TO PART 3

The True Meaning of Charity (Part 1)

GO TO PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3

 

Each year, during this time, I feel a feeling of unease and inadequacy as charity events aimed at collecting funds to help the most needy and, alas, “less fortunate” amongst us. I feel this sense that, as a person, I am somehow less than my friends, family and other human beings living in the world. Having an impairment and consequently experiencing the effects of a disabling society, which sometimes chooses to exclude me and pretends  to  be entitled to speak on my behalf, makes me feel like an object to be used for other people’s  ends and a subject to be spoken about and rarely as a whole person. Indeed, so-called “charity” events seem to inflate the false idea that disabled people are not like other human beings.

 

I regret that I have been uncomfortable to acknowledge my physical reality - my impairment. However, as I have grown to embrace the Buddhist outlook, I acknowledge that my body is part of who I am. Indeed, it has made me who I am today. While some voices in society may dismiss my body as deficient and deformed in some way, the body remains the only means by which I can relate to the world. We are not minds (or souls) trapped in bodies. Both mind and body possess the qualities that make me the persons we are today. Attempting to divide these two aspects of our humanity risks to destroy the value of our integrity as whole persons.

 

Unfortunately, how society talks of the body appears to put across an impossible ideal of the healthy, permanent and fully functional body. Any other variations to this idea are, at best, put across as incomplete or, at worse, unworthy of life. I learned since I was young that my body was the problem. Sadly, this meant that I grew to hate my body and indulged in a fantasy of a disembodied mind. I sought refuge in applying my mind to learn, think and many a time sought to overstrain my body to please those around me. Don’t get me wrong, any physical achievement gives me pleasure and satisfaction back then as it does today. Yet, at the same time, the moments when my body didn’t deliver could become times of great personal failure and guilt for not living up to the high expectations of others that were often unrealistic and, frankly, unreachable given my physical condition.

CONTINUED TO PART 2

Meditations in Watercolour...

It’s official. I will be moving soon to my new house at Qawra. This house, made possible thanks to the funding and support of, mainly, the local Church and the state, was officially opened. Given that, behind this project, there were important stakeholders, it was inevitable that this event was covered by local media.

I was asked to be one of the speakers. As one of the three residents who are going to live there, I was chosen to write a short speech and deliver it during the official opening. I am not a stranger to public speaking but I always get a little bit anxious before speaking. Especially since I was asked to talk about an event which will radically change my life and the lives of two other mates who I will be sharing my house with.

In my speech, I wanted to convey two main ideas as I reflect ed on what this move would mean to me as a disabled person. I remember how I often thought about the prospect of living on my own but, recent occasions when my health and general condition regressed, I feared that this dream would remain just that. A dream. So, when I was asked whether I would want to live in my own place, I grabbed the opportunity. I had my doubts, of course and I still do.But, sometimes, you must take a leap into the unknown.

In my speech, I also wanted to express my deepest thoughts about this important moment in my life. I expressed my hopes that, together with my mates, this building will not remain a construction made of stones but, I hope will become a community of friends. We chose to call our new home “Akwarell”, which is the Maltese word for “water colour painting” and I explained how our individual differences as disabled people could be compared to the colours found on an artists’ palette. We all have our distinct qualities. We all have our unique beauty. Yet, like the blend of colours found in a water colour painting, together we can create a thing far greater than who we are as individuals.

Another reflection I shared concerned the question of independence. I tried to explain what I meant to me to live independently. That is wasn’t about doing everything on my own. That it wasn’t about denying the support of others. I tried to explain how independence meant to me, as a disabled person, the opportunity to make choices over my life. And even if I may need the support and assistance of others to realise my choices, as long as it’s my decision, then I’m independent. I also reflected on the fact that nobody in real life is truly completely independent from another as we all, disabled or not, depend on one another to live in this world (1).

Finally, I talked about how all the people in my life have contributed to making this moment possible. How, if it wasn’t for the people who sustained me throughout my life - my parents, family, friends, work mates and many others I knew and others I didn’t know - I might have been a different person. I also talked about how if it hadn’t been for visionaries like Mons Azzopardi, a charismatic priest, who worked to promote the idea that we, disabled people, had a right to an equal human dignity which challenged the false idea of charity which belittled us to inferior examples of human beings. I expressed my gratitude because thanks to people like Mons Azzopardi and those who followed in his footsteps, Mons Gatt and Fr Micallef (today), that we have a culture shift also in the Church (2).

Even if I am committed to Buddhist practice, I cannot deny that if it hadn’t been for the good works carried out by the Church in ensuring social justice, I wouldn’t have the opportunity today to live my life to its full potential. I’m also grateful for this and for being able to have a choice in how I live my life and in how to express my authentic being. I remain indebted to the many people who have helped me every step of the way. That, I may never be able to repay. I decided to spend this weekend at home where I have lived most of my life. I’m sure I’ll have moments of doubt on whether I was really ready to make this transition.

However, I feel that, as with any change, there will always be a degree of uncertainty. It’s part of the process of life and refusing to accept the cycle of change leads to decay and death. I will be probably doing a lot of meditation over the coming weekend. However, I trust that this change will bring me new experiences and a fresh insight into who I am and on my relation to others and the world.

For now, I can just say thank you to all those who helped me get to where I am today. To who I am today. Thank you!



Footnotes:
(1) This idea was inspired by the idea of co-dependence found in Buddhist teachings, or the idea that everything depends on another to exist.
(2) Another idea borrowed from dharma, or the idea that we create and are created simultaneously by other objects in the world (whether material or abstract).

The Call of Compassion

I wasn’t planning to write a post today on this blog. However, I felt that circumstances have conspired against me and I am now compelled to write. I don’t really know why. You see, since today was a day off work, I had made plans on how to spend the day. I did manage to do some of the things I planned for the morning but at around 11am my plans had to change. I fell from my wheelchair and fell on the floor on my back. Well, I might have been a comic site as I think I looked like a tortoise who fell on its back and couldn’t move but had to scream for help to be assisted back to my chair.

I am still unable to move that much now. Not that I ever move that much. But, yes, the pain is there and I can’t ignore it when I move. I am resting and I think that I need to get a good rest if I realistically want to work tomorrow. Believe me, I felt bad about all this and I was just getting better from a recent back problem! Yet, I have to say that this injury has forced me to take a break from my plans and dedicate some time to good meditation. I thought it would help me relax and deal with the many emotions that were arising within me. I feel that this daily practice is helping me to put things in a wider perspective,. For, even if my physical injury was a great concern to me, I knew that right now people from around the world are suffering more than I could ever imagine. Not that I’m implying that I’m in anyway better than them but I felt that I should appreciate the present moment, pain or no pain.

I felt that this moment of pain should be a moment to reflect on others who are facing difficult situations. I felt that any suffering I had was simply part of the human experience. Although not nice or pleasant, it can be an occasion where we grow as human beings. It’s an event that forces us to consider our vulnerability as living beings. It makes us more aware that we remain fragile to the elements and are really helpless if you consider all the things we depend on to live. Things we take for granted.

I have often been, as a disabled person, on the other side of the fence. When I was being helped or assisted. However, inasmuch as those who helped me had good intentions, they seemed to look at me as an object of pity. I was not an equal but, alas, less fortunate. I felt diminished as a human being and reduced to a subject of charity. Now, I fear this kind of ‘charity’ is not really the thing. For, an approach to helping others which starts off with the assumption that who you are helping is worse off than you, already creates a barrier of sorts between yourself and the other. . For, as you find in both Buddhist and Christian traditions, charity is not about what you have done or are doing but rather about your motivation behind your act of charity.

For, if you help me out of pity, you’re not acting out of charity. You’re not acting with compassion. You would be acting out of pride or an interest to improve your public image. In this sense, a the call of compassion demands of us to take off our own selves and respond to another person as a human being like us. It requires of us to treat another as a human being. It’s that simple. The difficulty arises when, because of the way we have grown to regard our status in the world, we perceive others who may be different from us on many levels as not really worthy human beings, or at best, lower than us.

That’s why, even if I hope that my pain goes away soon, I am grateful for this opportunity. Not because I enjoy being in pain but that this experience has reminded, me once again, of how easy it’s to forget our human reality. Howe easy it is to forget to be compassionate to others simply because we are too caught up in our private worlds.

How easy it is for us to deny our common humanity.