Monday, May 14, 2007

Keeping Myself Alive Through Your Empathy

Keeping myself alive...
Through your EMPATHY (Slipknot - Skin Ticket)

Begging is an art. Sure we all get annoyed by those nuisances who get in our ways in public places asking for our money. But from a different perspective, they have learnt some lessons in life that an average person wouldn't know: The human fragility, ego, sympathy and empathy.

Humans express a wide range of emotions, and being able to interact with those emotions is an art. Consider this little girl, dressed in a nice modest-looking dress, selling a small white or red flower for at some overpriced rate. Guess most of us have seen her one time or another.... A classic, we've all heard bedtime stories about a princess with a flower in her hand... So boom, there goes that girl shattering all that you know as child, asking for your "generosity"... Can you resist the temptation?!.... So, how much of an effort did that girl put to come up with such a brilliant idea?! It needs an expert psychologist to figure this one out!!!

In some cultures, parents would not give their daughters to a man for marriage if he didn't get out begging for at least a week. They believe that a man who cannot beg is not worthy of their daughter... Why is begging so important in such a culture that it can make a difference between a worthy husband and an unworthy one?!

It is true that in many cases a nice word or a simple gesture, can achieve more than hardship. Maybe this is the lesson that beggars understand better than anyone else. Maybe we can have a new requirement for certain jobs to get a "begging tour". Jobs like customer care, or maybe sales representatives (practically, "sales" is "corporate beggary") can make use of experience gained through begging.

6 comments:

No_Angel said...

One word summarizes what you wanted to say ..... Humility
surprisingly you didn't even mention it once!

why is this under darwinism ?

as for sales ..... its just the shrewd art of misdirection has not humility in it.... its vile !
same with marketing ...

ENjoy

The Observer said...

Sure, beggars do gain some skills! It is a competitive field!

Devil's Mind said...

Well, I am not sure what you mean by "Humility", but I don't think beggary has anything to do with humility... More or less, I would describe beggary as you described sales: "its just the shrewd art of misdirection has not humility in it.... its vile!" - Or in other words, its a combination of emotional black-mailing, and emotional fraud.

I filed it under "Darwinism" because its a competitive field as Observer has described. Beggars are "staying alive" through our human emotions, so its a good lesson in survival!

Tala said...

its true that they are exposed to stuff we never got exposed to, but what percentage of time you think a begger fakes it and he is not really in need, does it occur to you what was it like for a begger to beg for the first time,, don't you think its really HARD thing to do if he/she (kid) were forced on it or didnt have another option? can you imagine the consequences when people look down to you, scorn and walk away, especially if you are a kid, how proud of a person would that make one day being grown up.

it would be as you describe it a manipulations of ones feelings but i guess its only when its the first time, other than this,, when a kid takes it as a profession and is convinced with it, here it becomes a talent.. a skill to push the right buttons, and here .. yes, it becomes like sales representatives, poeple who gather sponsorships on a higher level...etc

but really, looking people in the eye can tell their inside (nieh) and its up to you to believe them or not

Devil's Mind said...

I don't think experience is a negative thing. Its pretty much always positive. People are always proud of what they do. Even if you beg, you are proud of what you do. Even if you are forced to it, you'd still be proud of what you do.... Its just human nature to be proud of what we do!!

Maybe, because you never tried to beg, you find it hard thing to do. In fact, almost everything that you have never done would seem like a hard thing to do. But once you do that thing, you would realize how easy it is.

Thats why, some beggars might be concerned the first time they go down the street. But once they realize how easy it is to trick people to give you their money for free, they would keep doing it over and over again. Its as simple as that.

Sure, its unfair that someone being pushed to beg. But no matter what happens, I don't think that anyone would ever look down unto HIMSELF.

No_Angel said...

hey thanks for explaining the "Darwinism" part.
as to clarify humility, its just lowliness. the act of putting your pride on the side and this case doing something that is socially demeaning.
the what is conflicting is that charity of all natures (whether monetary or not) is a show of empathy .
whether he is deceiving you or not is not the question, its whether it will make his life easier is the one.

in general i don't like baggers and never give money to the adults but thats why they put kids on the street and i know its just like a sales person if he doesn't meet a certain quota he will suffer. so i only try to contribute ever so measly so that he has to suffer less :D