So yeah, this is Texas.
On Charity.
While reading Walden, I was struck by a passage in which Thoreau criticizes philanthropy. He argued that instead of striving to be comparable to an herb that’s only purpose is to be ground up and made into a tea to be drank when one is sick, we should instead strive to be like the flower who grows for its own purpose, but in doing so grows beautifully, becoming pleasant to look at and warming to the heart. If we continually sacrifice of ourselves in the name of charity, or the goodwill of another, we will eventually find ourselves poor and in no shape to help anyone. Instead, we should not let giving be our goal in life, but rather we should strive to attain as much as that we may afford to part with some of it in order to help our neighbor. It is the man who strives to help another that finds himself wishing for that man to fall, that he may lift him up again. Charity is a trap set by god to immobilize the proud and self-righteous. Keeping them occupied as a dog chasing its own tail.
