A woman who has worked in a sugar cane field for the past 40 years said, of the need for aid to educate their children and to do away with the need for the children to work in the fields to help support the family, that other countries should forget people like her for “we are rotten already, it is the young who can still be saved.”

And I watch as the US mulls over the desire of the administration to double aid to Africa and Africa is slowly turning away from the US to China. Because unlike the US, China invests in business in Africa more than it gives blanket aid. The Chinese move there as well, work there and in Liberia have instituted free lessons in Chinese because they are appalled that the Liberians are signing agreements without being able to read the documents (BBC source).

Aid comes in two forms, one – in such a way that alleviates an immediate need and the second – in such a way that promotes a change in the ability of the recipients to live.

Unlike the US, China is focused on the second form of aid because they understand that when you change the ability of the recipients to live by providing them with a means to achieve their dreams, you also change your ability to live in accordance with your own.

We still suffer from the idea that one should predetermine the outcome of kindness.

Which is something that extends beyond our political and diplomatic aid and is woven into our cultural expectations of society. We want the outcome of our charity and help and kindness to be something that we approve of, that the giver defines.

That woman in the fields knows that the children are not bent yet by the need and the suffering of survival and can see beyond what is and into their dreams. “We are rotten” to her, is an acknowledgment that after so much hardship - one’s dreams suffer.

Aid, charity and kindness for the young needs to be different then what is offered to those who are older. For them, we have to find a way to enable them to dream again of things beyond what they know. And dreaming comes from more then shelter, safety and a full belly – these things usually induce naps, not exercises in possibility.

Dreaming is about being able to see the potential and purpose in your own life again. To begin to regain a sense of excitement and possibility that can survive the knowledge of mortality. As you get older and (hopefully) become more connected to your mortality you should be experiencing a renewed surge of joy in life because you are more aware then ever of its fragility and brevity.

But tied into all of this, complicating it all…is our need for a sense of…knowing. We want to know what is happening, where things are going and what to expect. When we are children, most of our outbursts and bad behavior come from a reaction to the stress of “not knowing.” One of the best things you can do with a child, before you go someplace new, is to sit them down and tell them what to expect and what is expected of them. With that eased, they are more comfortable being curious because the situation is not overwhelming. If you have an idea of what to expect (and what is expected) then you are better equipped, oddly enough, to handle the unexpected. How this works – I am still figuring that one out. But I think it has to do with one’s ability to handle panic.

Oooops…ok…I just got totally distracted.

Completely…I think it has to do with my having to go near a mall today and other things that have begun to spin on the periphery.

What continues to amaze me is how many of you have emailed me your stories about having been stalked and how usually, it all began with an act of kindness. Even more striking is the process described of how you all have come full circle to the ability of being able to be kind again – with full knowledge that you do not know how it will be taken and how, the idea of losing the ability to be kind, to give is far more frightening then anything a stalker could do. In certain circles this is called achieving emotional maturity.

The current thinking is that one should not talk, should hide to avoid and so on and so many have found that the exact opposite is true. That it is our ability to give, to love and to do so with an awareness of the harm that may come from that that is essential to our feeling free and alive.

These women in the sugar cane fields believe that they have lost the ability to Love. For what is Love but creation? And the creation of something that extends beyond your specific circumstances? It is a leap of faith and these women, who “are rotten” have lost their faith in their ability to create.

That is the kindness they need. That is the kindness that we all need, someone to extend to us, on loan, their belief in our ability to create. Not survive. Not maintain. But to become more than what we are.

Maslow’s hierarchy does not allow for this.

Maslow places an emphasis on survival and maintenance over the innate ability of anyone to create beyond their circumstances. In the US, our whole approach to mental health is based upon Maslow. In fact, that f---ked up little pyramid influences quite a bit of our lives beyond mental health. We hammer on consumerism but its base is in these concepts, that we are capable of nothing without certain external things.

We, each and every one of us, are capable of anything and everything even if we live under a bridge and are starving. Man is driven to create and I am not talking about babies.

Poets, are the voice of the poor, we are the voice of what can be often by speaking of what has been and bringing out into the light where anyone can see that they are not alone.

Poets, are the voice of the rich and of royalty, for we speak of the longing for intimacy.

Artist, musicians…they are the same. The language we inhabit is something that goes beyond ourselves…in essence, there is no such thing as a poor artist, unless, they have stopped themselves from creating.

And you, who are not an artist, who do not have the ease of creating something outside of yourself as simply as we do, you create with your life using the tools an artist gives you and that you make for yourself.

The Aid that the world needs is not the means to continue surviving, but one that allows it to become.

‘nuff said

There are no comments to this entry.