Over the past few months I’ve been listening to Stefan Molyneaux’s podcast. Other than disagreeing him on almost everything, I’ve found his commentary challenging and enlightening. I’ve especially found his personal advice to his listeners helpful, with a few notable exceptions.
Anyway… On a recent podcast he was discussing the duty many feel to “help the poor.” And then he brought up a personal anecdote. He knew a guy who claimed that he wanted to meet more women, and lamented his lack of success in that department. Stefan took a long look at him, and noted that his lifestyle, personal appearance, mannerisms, in short everything about him made this difficult or impossible. So Stefan took him out to get a cool haircut and clothes from the current decade. He took him to the gym, and introduced him to his successful and gregarious friends. It seemed to take hold for a while. But then Stefan lost touch with him for about a year or so. When he saw him again, everything had gone back to year zero. He was cutting his own hair with the help of a mixing bowl, he had given up the gym for McDonald’s dollar meal, and his only female companionship was his mother and their Wednesday night Murder She Wrote marathons. The point: did he help? Was it worth it?
Stefan seems to think the answer is no, and at first glance I tend to agree. Maybe in a way he helped his friend to clarify what he actually wanted, and maybe he didn’t actually want what society thought he should want. Maybe he found what most of us would see as a sad and pathetic life to be rewarding in some way, or maybe trying to be someone he really was not wasn’t rewarding enough to justify the labor. But was the result what the do gooder intended? No.
Of course this is anecdotal, but I immediately thought back to people I had tried to help or advise. Usually if any change takes place, one has to cajole and babysit the subject of one’s help. For example, I had a friend who was a hoarder. I basically forced him to throw out his piles of decade-old newspapers. It worked for a while, but then I found out that he was collecting again. Another all-night recycling session. Then, several years ago he moved to the opposite coast. I visited him last summer. When he first got there, he had bought a house with his considerable inheritance and decorated it just the way he wanted it. Five years later, he was very evasive about showing me his beautiful house. Finally, I discovered that he had filled his house with newspapers, old junk mail, and random stuff he had acquired at yard sales, and was sleeping and living in a storage pod in his backyard. Did I help? No, I was just a source of shame and anxiety for him in the end…
So can we help? Should we? How?
magickalagnostic 