Look into your heart........

There is often a fine line between almost everything. Between good and evil, God and Devil. There is hence this moral issue of what is charitable and what is plain pity. A lot of people misunderstand the terms charity and charitable. They view them as a form of outlet to assauage their sins (be they lies, cheat or steal). They view them equally as a pity for the more unfortunate ones.

Pity? Sympathy?

I am in a way more meticulous with words. I prefer to decipher each word to its exact meaning. Like one of my previous post about sob and cry, one of my friend simply just say that it is a play of words. On the contrary, I do not think that I am playing with words. More so, I am focusing on the meaning that each word carries and its signifance.

Hence, on the surface, pity is having sympathy, and sympathy is a form of pity. However, on a deeper thought, pity is different from sympathy. I know a lot of you people are rearing for a fight with me over this.....I don't care....Pity is DIFFERENT FROM Sympathy.

How different?

They are all around us.

1. You leave your house and there is an old auntie selling newspaper.

2. Approach the MRT station, there is a very very ancient uncle selling tissue paper.

3. Go Orchard and walk towards Borders' direction using the underpass. There will be this visually handicapped man playing the mini-piano and singing. There will also be this physically handicapped man sitting there with a rusty can.

4. Up the escalator, there is this 90 year-old auntie selling tissue.

5. Further down the underpass, there is this 70 year-old auntie selling an assortment of stuff, from jade bangles to pendants.

6. Slightly to her right is another man sitting silently with a box in front of him.

7. Just before entering into Borders, still in the underpass, there is this Ang Mo with a leg sawn off, playing the violin.



A journey like this is very much a part of my slack life, where I drowned myself in this confusing world of entertainment and luxuary. I can describe a totally new experience, with the same walkways and underpass. That would be the advertisements, the ubiquitious fliers-people (those that thrust out papers at you when you go near them), some friends that you lost contact with a million of years ago, the porn-vcd stall, the make-shift wallet and bags store.......What I had just described is properly what we know but does not readily acknowledged.

What is pity, what is sympathy then?

To me, pity is just pure pity, coming out of your heart, yet a negative connotation lingers. There is sense of "goodness, what happened to you. Hope it does not happen to me". When you pity somebody, you do not share the predicament that he/she is in. In fact, you pity him/her because you feel sad at their expense. You are sad not fully because of "them and their situationa" but because of a temporal sense of gulit that arises. To assuage such guilt, usually, you do charities, donate money.

What next? If only donating money can lift them out of their situations. If only money can do what REAL HELP can do. Money is important, yet teach a man to fish is ever the vital doctrine. Giving him fish will eventually starve him....think about it.

Sympathy is one that has a more positive side. To sympathise, is to take the extra step of pity. That is to put oneself in the shoes. To walk to the walk. It goes beyond giving. It is sharing. To encourage them. To help them. To support them. MOST IMPORTANTLY, TO TREAT THEM LIKE ONE OF US.

ALL of them should not be subjected to our PITY. It is an insult to our fellow people. Instead, we need to sympathise with them, and do all to help them be like us. They don't need our mindless donations. They are one of us and it is up to us to help them along.

I never believe in donating to the visually handicapped man that plays the mini-piano and sings. I see donating as an insult to him. Instead, I will approach as a customer who enjoyed his service and pay him accordingly. I don't pity him and I will encourage him to sing more.

I don't know about the rest of you people. To donate because you believe in Karma, to donate because you want to avoid a "certain" punishment awaiting for you, or to donate because you are under pressure to do so (gahmen pressure/peer/girlflend)......

Look into your heart........