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Laura Marsh's avatar

YES! You have hit on it exactly. A friend sent me one such video this week, quite long and taking place in several locations. It was a heart-warming “story” of a jogger who doubles-back to help a man in a wheelchair cross the road, then runs him to a pharmacy to purchase his medication when she finds out he is unemployed and we, the voyeurs, watch him break down crying at the end. At which point I callously wondered, who is filming all this? Who was spontaneously following this jogger throughout all this? Is this just all staged… but for what reason? Maybe this really occurred, but I love your phrase, “ True kindness needs no spotlight”.

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Randall's avatar

I read this years ago and your post brought it to mind:

"The first degree is miserly giving. This is when we give away that which we no longer want. It is considered miserly because giving in this way asks nothing of us. This sort of giving is like recycling, and it is valuable but not particularly generous.

The next level of generosity is kindly giving. With kindly giving we give away what we would like to receive. There is a thoughtfulness and friendliness in this kind of giving.

The third, and highest, form of giving is kingly giving. In kingly giving we give the very best of what we have in time, material goods, or, in some cases, even our lives."

I grabbed this quote from wordpress.com. Essentially, all giving is inherently good regardless of the motivation.

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