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Sunday 20 April 2014

Where does Charity begin?



I think businesses are resorting to a pretty disgusting ploy in South Africa and if it is happening here you can be sure it started somewhere else in the world and is happening all over.

There is a pen company that is enticing you to buy their make of pen and for every pen you buy they will donate one to a needy child for school.

A shoe company was running a slightly different buy one and get one free. Buy a pair of school shoes and one will be donated to a needy child. Will the child have to hop to school or sit at home waiting for someone else to buy a pair of shoes?

Now I see that they are advertising a breakfast cereal buy a box and they will donate a box.

Baby products - buy ours and we will donate an arbitrary amount to a children's home.

A fast food chain had a particularly disgusting ad. If you bought a certain meal some arbitrary amount was donated to charity. The ad showed street children clad in rags happily hopping and skipping after a well fed family who were gobbling food from their take away box and the street children were singing!
"Thank you very much,
Thank you very much,
that's the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me."

In what suspended TV belief could that ever ring true?

There are many more examples – most companies seem to be climbing on this bandwagon of suspended belief TV viewers.

I have a few concerns:
  1. Why should my purchase motivate the company to give to charity? Is that really a charitable act on their behalf? Why don't they just do it?
  2. While I am doing my charitable part are the directors sitting in the boardroom rubbing their hands together and licking their lips, nudging one another and saying "Another gullible fool bites the dust"?
  3. Come tax rebate time I am sure they all standing there patting themselves and everyone else on the back and relishing their tax rebates because of their "charitable" acts.

Come on companies – don't send us on a guilt trip to help you boost your sales and make you look good on paper.

Sunday 13 April 2014

Alone




In my earlier blogs I have described my early life. For the first six years of my life I grew up in a vibrant, on the move household of between sixteen and twenty people. It was a huge house. Amongst all this vibrancy and activity my father engendered in me a sense of what it meant to be alone – and enjoy it!
He encouraged me to read and lose myself in books, he encouraged me to be creative – there was a lot of creativity around me. (My family abounds with talented creative people.) He also encouraged me to foster a love of classical music.  

When we moved out of this merry, mad, crazy existence I found myself alone a lot of the time. It could have been horribly confusing if my father had not encouraged me to enjoy being alone.
Often people, on hearing that I was an only child would remark. "Ah shame! You must be lonely."
Why do people confuse these two words – "alone" and "lonely". And from this scenario we can get another word "only":

An only child is alone and therefore must be lonely.

I cannot grasp that concept. It was because I was an only child that I learned to be alone without being lonely. Unfortunately I also learned to yearn for alone time.

I was a High School teacher. I was surrounded by teens all day at school and for the rest of the day I was surrounded by my kids. I loved the kids at school and I loved my kids but I often craved that alone time.
During school holidays I would call my kids in for lunch and insist that for 1 hour they stay alone in their room. I didn't mind what they did. They could read, play, sleep – whatever. I think they hated it but it achieved three goals:
  1. It helped them to come terms with being alone. I didn't know what the future held for them but I knew they had to like themselves enough to be their own company if needed.
  2. Mostly they chose to read and are now avid readers.
  3. It gave me 1 hour alone time! So what! We all sometimes have ulterior motives!
A few years ago I was rewarded when my son told me that he mostly hated those times alone but now if he was alone it didn't worry him – and he nearly thanked me for it!

So let's explore this word "alone". The free dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/) gives the following definitions:
  1. Being apart from others; solitary.
  2. Being without anyone or anything else; only.
  3. Considered separately from all others of the same class.
  4. Being without equal; unique.
And now for the word "lonely":
  1. (two meanings)
    1. Without companions; lone.
    2. Characterized by aloneness; solitary.
  2. Unfrequented by people; desolate: a lonely crossroads.
  3. (Two meanings)
    1. Dejected by the awareness of being alone.
    2. Producing such dejection
How about "only"? (Only the adjective meanings apply in this context:)
1. Alone in kind or class; sole
2. Standing alone by reason of superiority or excellence.

Am I crazy? To me the only negative word here is lonely. The other two words give a sense of a sublime state. Alone becomes slightly negative when you add "ness" to it – aloneness.

You can be lonely in a room full of people just as easily as you could be sitting at home alone.

Another thought springs to mind:

At this time in history (April 2014) most of the world seems to be focused on one human being. A man who has never had the privilege of being alone but has often through circumstance been lonely.

I caught a friend's Facebook status today (I hope you don't mind me borrowing it Stephen Cloete)

"Having just caught up the week summary of the OP trial, I must just add my own 2 cents. He said over and over again that his life is on the line. That is absolutely not true. His lifestyle is on the line."

Yes, his life has already changed – he is going from a man constantly surrounded by people to a man who is at the moment very lonely. He is the only one standing trial – he is the only one facing a barrage of questions which seem to be confusing him. In a room full of people he must be feeling very lonely indeed.

(Please do not read anything more into this statement – I am not the judge – I do not proclaim him innocent or guilty. I am an impartial outsider and just hope that the judge is led to give a fair outcome.)

Friday 4 April 2014

A newborn baby's cry



There are many religions that believe to a greater or lesser extent that the soul enters the body at some stage before birth. This can vary from the moment of conception to the moment before crowning.

Some believe that the soul has some lesson to learn or task to do and if the lesson or task is not completed or is unsuccessful they will be coming back fairly soon to give it another try and this could go on ad nauseum until they get it right.

Another belief is that the souls chose their parents – the people who will help them achieve this life's tasks. (Please remember this when you feel fit to be tied by something one of them might have done!)

Most agree that the soul is unaware of the lesson and has to rely on circumstances developing to give it clues. The soul knows before birth where it will go and what it must do but this memory dissipates throughout the baby years and a 4 or 5 year old child has reached the age of bliss. He or she is obsessed with playing and not even aware of the greater task in store.

Suddenly it hit me like a hammer blow to the side of the head. The shriek that a child gives at its birth is tantamount to its saying: 

"Let me go back … I have changed my mind!! It's much nicer on the other side. I don't want to be here!!"