(Imported from my old weblog January 8, 2005)
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> I feel we interact with people in various ways. To give a role and place to a downtrodden and underconfident soul is really a noble deed. But I wonder if that's what we are supposed to do. I don't resent that idea. But I don't fully believe in that either. Just like my stand on 'Faith' I am an agnostic here too.
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> Over time, I have developed a deep and smouldering resentment for out and out kindness. If an existence is all due to an act of kindness, it has no hope to earn the pride that must exist with each life. If I am sure that the other party knows that his pain hurts me as much as it hurts him, only then can I extend my helping hands to him. Or else, I must manage to convey that any kind act I did was very much a natural act -- a trade of benefits -- not a divine one.
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> Last year I was reading a novel named Gora by Tagore. It conveyed this idea very lucidly and elaborately. I won't be able to do it within this mail. Perhaps an example will do good here. Rest we'll talk. For instance, the stuff we were left with yesterday...if I were given a chance to give it to somebody, I won't give it the person who needs it more. I will give it to the person who understands it better that I am giving it for my own reason, not out of any kind of kindliness and nobility, so that he doesn't burden me with any gratitude that I don't deserve. I am dead scared of being called kinder than I actually am.
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