The thing about benevolence

I was having lunch here at the office with my grandmother and aunts (the benefits of having a penthouse above your office building) when my aunt's dogs started fighting each other. Two devastatingly cute yorkshire terriers fighting over a bone. It was distracting regardless of whatever conversation is present. Then one of my uncles articulated an interesting point: "binigyan mo pa kasi ng buto e, tuloy may pinag-aawayan pa" (because you gave them the bone now they have something to fight over) Hence begins one of my philosophical inquiries again.

Flashback to Monday, April 10, the Chinese Community we created in college had dinner at Dampa, this seafood market/restaurant row in Roxas that takes the seafood you buy at the market outside and let's you choose on how you want your seafood cooked. We ordered quite a lot and I opted to take home the excess.

Being in Manila, there of course was no shortage of beggars asking for alms, outside the restaurant, there were two kids who asked for the excess food we had, I thought about it and told them to share it with their co-indigents trying to pass it off as our group's benevolent act, being holy week and all. On our way to the parking area, we were approached once again with another pair of street kids. I informed them of the food we bestowed upon their fellow destitutes and told them that I ordered they share the food thus they would have equal claim on it as the ones that I handed the food to.

What followed was an argument among the poor street kids trying to stake their own claim (rightful or not) on their sustenance. We didn't stay long enough to witness the outcome, nonetheless the extension of the effect of that event leads me to the ensuing series of reflection:

Should we be angry at the street kids for fighting over their food? The immediate response would be to get angry at the kids and act as mediator controlling their every consumption. But upon thinking on it, are the kids actually at fault? Similar to the dogs, they were only acting upon impulse (don't give me the bullshit that they can think, when you're hungry screw morality); starved children with this little gracious act providing for their sustenance until the uncertain next time they can get some food in their bodies, of course they'll claw at it for every morsel. It's not that I look upon the street children as animals that'll kill for food, I'm just saying that given their situation... I understand.

Hence the next question, given that we do understand the plight of the impoverished should we still have given them the food thereby trigerring a brutal fight over something as innocent as grace. Once we've determined that the one that was graciously given the gift might not be at fault for fighting over it, should we crucify the one that giveth?

The thing about benevolence is that if you know the whole picture, regardless of your act of kindness, you still feel bad. You feel bad because you know that whatever you do, how much you give it still isn't enough. Which is in a sense good that you feel bad. It definitely is much better than not doing anything at all and just giving up. I'd much rather have given the kids the food rather than just consuming it all. But the fact that we can't provide everything to anybody in a sense still gives that dreadful incapacity to do anything. Lest we just close our eyes, be happy about our small insignificant contibution, be naive about our altruism, that's when things turn out for the worse.

It's tells two things for those people that individually see the world now as it is; have a clear vision of what the world should be; as well as the big gaping hole in the middle. That 1.) because of this they are good people, that they do good acts to do what they can. and 2.) that because they somehow have an idea of all its effects, they will never be happy.