I’ve downright gotten philosophical about it. The way my and other people’s suffering is used as a prop in other people’s stories.
The way I see it, if some people get personal satisfaction and a good reputation from being the stars, and their stardom leads to them helping people, I shrug. If you’re in a desperate situation you use the resources you have in front of you, and even say whatever it takes for them to help you more. I just don’t trust their motivations as people who “help the disadvantaged” can have INSANE saviour complexes and hurt those around them so they can heal them. Because they don’t actually care about you - they care about saving and being seen saving.
You’re perceptive to have caught on to the game so quickly. It took me years.
Besides, in some regard the helpers might also be in need, even though not in a material sense.
https://restofworld.org/2024/nigeria-philanthropy-asherkine/
I'm gathering material for a possible book (or series of blog posts) on the role of stories in people's identities and sense of meaning in their lives, and I'd be interested in hearing more about your perspective on this if you fancy talking about it? fromhn at demersal dot net
OT, but I'm very jealous of people with this mindset and work ethic. I'm much too lazy to have done something like this, but have always looked up to people who see things this way.
Just walk up to the church and say you're the guy who volunteered to wash dishes that day. Of course the people who volunteer get something out of it, something you should have noticed when you were volunteering!
I was managing a small optics factory in Livermore. We made laser mirrors to order there — any wavelength, any reflectivity, any angle, any polarization, you name it. I was working my ass off and was unmarried at the time. Thanksgiving came around and I had nowhere to go. But I hooked up with a church in San Jose that had a dinner for poor people and went as a volunteer. After serving the dinner, I wandered back into the dish room. I immediately went over to the sink and kicked out the lady who was pretending to work. I then washed all the dishes and left.
Comes one year later. I’m in the exact same situation. I call up that church. The lady says, “Oh, that’s very nice of you. But we don’t need any more volunteers, we have enough.” Oh shit. What to do. I found my old replica army parka I had bought in a Cambridge surplus store 20 years earlier. I went as a poor person. I didn’t want to be alone.
The first thing I found out is that poor people are herded, controlled, treated like children. We had to wait outside the church in the mild cold until permitted to enter, in a kind of line. So I sit down. I will never forget the beatific smiles of the volunteers that served us. This was performance art, and they were the stars. Everyone on the supplicant end noticed this, I’m sure. So the meal ends. I walk back into the dish room, survey the situation, once again kick out whoever was pretending to do the dishes, do the dishes, and leave.