sharing is caring

from tracy kidder's mountains beyond mountains: the quest of dr paul farmer, a man who would cure the world":
How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitians peasants answered with a proverb: "Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe, "in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant, as Farmer would later explain it, "God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us."

i send that above quotation to some friends and one replied that "...it's sad, cause it seems to come down to a few things, with corruption and without democracy, people will continue to starve in other countries. even when we share and donate stuff to corrupt countries, it's not used to distribute to the people in need, but to further solidify those in power."

my reply was:
i don't know how much democracy has to do with it (but then, i know very little about poli sci). i agree that corruption (both in govts and charitable orgs, and in individuals!) taints everything!

i was talking to a friend the other day about the "billionaire's pledge":

"German shipping millionaire Peter Kramer feels that it would better if the billionaires kept their money and let the government collect the revenue via taxes. Kramer believes that the government would use the money more effectively by putting it to work directly in local communities. He thinks that the giving pledge is a way for the ultra rich to avoid taxes and donate to their favorite interests and hobbies. Many of the rich feel that the government and other organizations are the best vehicles for charitable endeavors."

i agree with kramer (not entirely, but i totally get it). i've always thought that if i were super rich i wouldn't create my own charity thing, i'd give my money to an existing one cause it takes a lot of overhead to create a new one and what wrong with an already established fund? i know a lot of people are like "it's my money, so i want to spend it exactly the way i want to" which is true. but... in the end aren't you really just helping the same people? except now there will be fewer duplicated efforts in getting that money to those people.

but back to your thing about corruption, tons of the non-profits that people donate to have such a high overhead (or embezzling, whatever) that of the, say $100 that you donate, only maybe... $65 actually goes to help someone. so who would even want to donate to these orgs? problem is that you really don't know who you're "helping" anymore. so i know of lot of people use that as a excuse and not donate at all. which soooo does not help. :(

i've come to think that... i don't want to change the world. i don't want to change someone's whole life. ...well, not that i actually don't want to, but... i just want to make at least one person's single moment in life a little bit better. so when i did my shoe drive, or my current eye glasses drive, if at one person who honestly deserves it will be helped (and of course there will be! it's just the odds, you know? collect ~300 pairs of shoes, at least one person who needs it is going to get a pair!). then that's good enough for me. :)

basically, other people doing bad cannot prevent you from trying to do good.