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........THE
FAMILIAR Vol 1, Iss 2..............................................................................................................................
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BEHIND
THE SCENES OF AN EMOTION LITERACY E-ZINE MISSION
STATEMENT THE FAMILIAR VOL. 1 ISS. 2. Missed an issue of the familiar? Click here to browse through our entire back-issue archive! |
greed, need, what gets first feed?! The following piece was written in response to an assignment for the familiar: Sita stated, on a number of occasions, that the root of the world’s ills is people’s greed and that everyone is greedy … if that’s the case then I asked her if she would please write a narrative about her own personal greed. Sita: So now I’m greedy. Great. Just like every other damn person in this world. Wait—I take that back. There are two people I can think of that aren’t greedy. One is the late Mother Theresa. I cannot think of a single thing she ever wanted for herself. She was extremely brave, and everything she did was for someone else. I cannot think of a person that exists with more strength than her. Which brings me to my second "un-greedy" person, who happens to not exist at all. ..Santa Claus. Unfortunately, I never had the experience of believing in Santa Claus because when I was three years old, my parents told me that Santa Claus was not real, but in fact a form of Capitalist propaganda. Not that I was deprived or anything. Capitalist propaganda is about the farthest thing away from "ungreedyness" I can imagine. However, the Santa Claus that exists in the minds of little deceived children everywhere seems to be the perfect representation of "ungreedyness," except for the fact that he seems to promote greed in the minds of children, as fast as capitalism in the minds of adults—not that I’m a communist or anything. Okay, so maybe Santa wasn’t the best example. This brings me to our next question. Does society produce greed or did greed produce society? Unfortunately, that question cannot be answered until we find out what came first, the chicken or the egg. This brings me to my next question I ask myself. Am I greedy? To answer this, let me first make sure I understand the term greed. According to Webster: greed is an excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves; avarice; cupidity. All right, well that definition doesn’t help clarify what I’m going to attempt to explain. If greed means to simply want more than you need, then yes. I am a greedy person. I want an education—which I don’t need, I want love—which I don’t need, I want respect—which I don’t need. None of these things are essential to my survival. So am I greedy? You decide. If greed means wanting more and more money and power, that is a whole different case. I want to make money—a whole lot of it, but not for myself. My goal in life is to help people.
Pamela: My main comment about your piece on greed is your use of the term "need." In certain ways of thinking, "need" pertains only to physical survival and I gather that is your thinking… None of these things—education, love and respect—are essential to my survival. …I am looking for a microcosmic definition of "need" and of "money and power" for that matter—something less broad, so to speak. But then, if your focus is the fact that there are so many people physically starving in the world, then I can totally see your point! First, things first—people must be physically fed before they can develop and tend to other parts of themselves. In the context of emotion literacy, I am considering a different kind of starvation and need for reinforcement pertaining to the emotional body which, for some, is not on the conscious map. We all know what a starving physical body looks like but what does a starving emotional body look like? We all know what food for the physical body looks like, whether we can obtain it or not, but, tell me, how many people do you think really understand the needs of the emotional body and how to feed it? The first course of that meal is thought. And much like a nutritionist reads ingredient lists to insure optimum sustenance, an emotion literacy advocate seeks to know the origins and nature of thought, especially the thoughts upon which emotional bodies feed—which thoughts, ideas or conceptual frameworks (read communication skills) really sustain the awareness, acceptance and vitality of an emotional body? I think that what I am challenging here is your broad sweep approach. I guess I am wanting you to look deeper because I hold this notion that if we look deeper some of the big, more basic, problems could be remedied or, at least, understood—putting us en route to remedy. The fact that there are so many people physically starving is NOT because there isn’t enough food on the planet…when you say it’s because there is greed in the world—I am prompted to wonder why people grasp for things they don’t need—or are these needs of a different, less obvious sort. When I think about people who take what they don’t need, I begin to think about the nature of fear. Were we to understand the language of the heart, we might bring ourselves closer than ever before to curtailing the grossly uneven distribution of resources. In any event, I don’t think we come to root understanding through a big picture lens but through very personal terms and definitions. I invite you to perceive more personal meaning and dimension behind these terms. We don’t have to agree for you to learn what I am teaching, we just have to continue exploring, discussing and discovering our own unique contexts for any given term…my hope is that you sustain interest in this process.
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