The Spirit of Giving

Now, he never considered himself a terribly generous person. Miles could say that he had done a few good deeds in his life, but if he considered deeply for a moment he would have to concede that those good deeds usually had come about through some kind of pressure. This most often took the form of external pressure-an action largely influenced by who was watching or a kind act done in order to save face or simply to avoid other forms of discomfort. Throwing spare change at a homeless person ensured that they wouldn't attempt too much conversation aimed at awakening guiltiness. Sometimes a good deed was motivated by internal pressure. His super-ego would berate him for his lawless heart and influence him to reach deeper into his pockets. The result amounted to the same thing, a brief alleviation of the burden of his conscience. He couldn't help but think that no matter what he did he would never be able to repay some large karmic debt that he had accrued in some forgotten past existence. It was somewhat often that he found himself giving money to panhandlers. He almost never felt good about it afterwards. As if God's watching eyes were not fooled and unimpressed, if indeed they were watching.

In his early twenties he enjoyed weekend drinking events with some friends. They would go to various bars downtown and spend several Andrew Jacksons over watery drinks, blaring music and desperate laughter. One night leaving a bar, Miles was approached by an apparently homeless woman. He was alone and the alcohol he had ingested had put him in a magnanimous mood. The feeling of an existential abyss gnawing at his heels that usually pursued him had been deadened by intoxication. The world seemed just fine. But the woman standing before him now was an affront to his tenuous conviction of the benevolence of the universe. Maybe he could do something about that. The woman was thin and looked rather frail. Her hair was long and stringy and suitably unwashed. She was wearing out of date blue jeans and her clothes did not seem to fit quite right. She had most likely received them from the shelter that was just a block or two away.

As he was open-heartedly inebriated he listened to her tragic tale with a noble sense of concern. She told him a long and detailed story that he would quickly forget-something about health issues and doctors, a brother, a broken down car, unfair business practices...or some such stuff. Nevertheless, he was moved enough to offer her what he had left in his pockets. It was only seven dollars but his self-satisfied sense of liberality was further kindled when he saw her eyes light up. He even felt that the two of them had made a special connection that they would both remember fondly for a long time to come. She gratefully pronounced the ubiquitous "God bless you!" and Miles walked on feeling like a fine citizen concerned with the social fabric and desirous to help make changes for good in this world.

A couple of months later, he was again leaving a bar where he had laughed with friends and spent a decent portion of his wages on overpriced and heavily diluted cocktails, when he encountered the very same woman. Miles smiled with a look of recognition and was already reaching into his pocket to pull out a dollar. She smiled as well but it was not one of recognition. In fact, it soon became clear that she did not recognize him at all. She then began her hard luck story, the very same tale she had told him previously. She told it with that same tragic urgency that she had told it before, as if those terrible events had just happened in the past few days. It was a speech that Miles now realized was memorized and well rehearsed like an actor's audition monologue. He suddenly felt so alone. He swiftly cut her tale short and gave her the dollar (he had to concede that her acting deserved something-she was good). She quietly blessed him and walked into the darkness.

Miles walked in the opposite direction and noticed the darkness surrounding him. And yet the streets were well lit. The pleasurable sensation of drunkenness was disappearing too rapidly. He walked on for home and disturbingly concluded that anything he might have done would have made no difference anyway, for her salvation or his own.