LJ Archive - 01/10/06: Devil's Charity

The Devil would certainly love watching me seal the contract for my own soul. That’s the way he works – you earn some credit to spend on your way to Redemption Town, then you allow pride to seal your fate on a bender and get on the fast train to Hell.

A letter came in last week thanking me for a recent contribution: following Hurricane Katrina's devastation, I wallowed for days until devising a plan. Thus, the sale of my old laptop morphed into a four-figure cash donation to the Red Cross, thanks to a lovely pyramid scheme of matching corporate donations.

I’m not bragging about it, because armchair philanthropy is a dangerous game and I’ve nothing to be proud of. A new laptop provides the means for me to post this, after all. It's not like I lost everything and have to bang this out on a 386 latop and hoof a floppy disk to the local library for upload.

Assurances swirl as white lies when I go to bed: If the circumstances were different; if I won the lottery; if I became self-made. Then I would open a homeless shelter. I would fund a community arts council. I would underwrite scientific explorations and support medical research.

But why the Hell (indeed) do I have to win the lottery? Why hook my cart of good deeds and outreach to such a fleeting, deceitful horse?

I like to think I have a generous heart: I give stuff away, contribute to fund-raising campaigns and have an incredibly hard time shunning panhandlers. Yet after the Indonesian tsunami, hand wringing was the order of the month. I’m not this selfish, I told myself. Come on, do something. You’ve got it good. How hypocritical of you to claim you have nothing to donate as you stand amongst your toys and tally the bills from Christmas shopping.

In the end of course, I failed as a pseudo-Christian and did nothing, choosing instead a cloistered life of insulated comfort and self-loathing. You know, I was taught better than that: they used to give us these little milk-carton piggy banks in grammar school every year at Christmas time - and you'd damn well better have that thing reinforced with duct tape and ready to burst when the collections were due!

My metaphoric milk cartons have remained empty for years. My “redemption” for this selfishness was the self-serving disposal of old electronics - tax-deductible, of course - the only thing I did last year. A stone-cold reveal disguised as a thank-you letter casts my hobbies and collections for the hollow idols they really are.

Is it normal to feel this way? Am I being pulled by a subtle higher calling, or being a self-loathing emo piece of shit? I don’t know. Some could say giving a little too late is better than nothing.

And the Devil would crack a smile.