This morning, I got to do a couple good deeds; I gave money to two people flying signs while on my way to pick up breakfast. The first was an older, white man in a nice coat. I had a ten and four singles, so I opted to give him the four dollars. I think, at least in my poverty, that aiming for five dollars in a tip at the weed store to handing it out to someone panhandling is the appropriate middle way; it's not a pittance to me, so I get real good value back by being generous where I am in life. That isn't why I do this, it's just an axiom that helps loosen purse strings in tight times for those in need because I am cursed to be bound to this algorithmic biobrain.
But, y'know, I ride down the road, past the high school with their absolutely hideous, disgusting, awful minors in booty pants, to veer into the parking lot where the store is, to find a young black woman with a number of bags that you know she's been carrying a minute also flying a sign. I don't even know what either of these signs said, I just know where you gotta be in life to let go of your dignity to hold a piece of cardboard. But, I stop my bike, pull out the ten without even thinking, my bike falls over, doesn't matter, hand her the bill, she thanks me but then she really thanks me when she sees its a ten, and you thank them, you bless them for God's too busy, and you head on your way.
Now, as I peddled off, I had the thought that it was better she got the larger amount. Then, immediately, I thought to myself, "is that racist?" And a quick thought soon after let me know it's prolly a good sign I care enough to automatically think about this, but y'know, because of my father, who held me to insane standards of perfection while bragging about how his stealth commando mission to sneak out at midnight to shoot out all three tiers of the "transplant" (his words) Bosnian neighbors' kiddie pool with his pellet gun because their kid was too loud the afternoon before...yea, yea, it IS shit like that which makes me care more than the average person.
Thus, y'know, I tell ya, I'm blessed to have had a narcissistic psychopath for a father, cuz I share his genes and was spoiled by his mother, so thank God I had an exemplary example for what not to be, to thus have the desire not to be like him embroidered within me every time my head was slammed into a dense, physical object.
Y'know, I cared about those two strangers today. I don't know who tf they are. I don't just believe or think I strengthen myself by choosing to be selfless; I KNOW I am. Early on in this CIA rigamarole, when everything I knew as "Illuminati" was self-contained on r/ShrugLifeSyndicate, where I was trained thirteen years ago, my one handler, Vince, the author of The Flesh Interface series, shared a link that showed why you don't give for their sake, but rather, you give for yourself. I was still as my father then, and a person on the street asking for money was a bum trying to trick me out of my money. That's still the world my father lives in. Worse. He thinks this of his son.
Well, at least I'm not that. But what is perfection of goodness? Is accepting being imperfect good enough?
