Sunday, August 29, 2010

Hey Hay! (Part 2)

Life Complications ~ Part 12.5


...no, I wasn't talking to hay...
...I don't think I've ever met hay yet
I should probably get out more...


So here is the official "Unofficial & Unplanned" Part 2 to the previous blog post located HERE
Or you can just scroll down a bit...whichever one is easier!




Refreshed your memory? Alright, on we go!
So I ended off last time with the fact that we as humans should probably share more with animals, since they share lots of stuff with us.
Yay for titles that really have nothing much to do with the moral of the story.
But I realized after that I was wrong! We share too much with the animals, and we are ignoring quite a lot of people!
Allow me to present to you an example:


Have you ever been to a petting zoo? or a farm? Those places where parents take there kids to see tame and/or safe animals. There are always those booths where you can buy a little paper cup-full of feed for the particular animal at hand, or if you go at the right time, the workers there might let you feed fresh hay to the goats in the farm.
Most of the time (in my part of the world anyways) you need to pay a fee for the little cups of feed so you can have your experience of feeding the animals [cue little kid being followed by a swarm of pigeons] and allow your little kid to be closer to nature [cue little kid being licked/nibbled on/eaten by a hungry goat]. The price for such a wonderful and truly unforgettable moment is around 1-3 dollars.
However, when you've done and finished with the little cup of feed (and realized, truly, how little the cup is) and dried the river of salty water running down your little kid's cute cheek (come on, the poor guy just got eaten/nibbled on/licked by a goat!), and you've made sure there were no more tongue germs on their little hands, you lead your family to the gift shop (for the gift shop is a place no fun-filled location is without, and you MUST always go there!) to stock up on the latest of your little kiddo's wants; a stuffed teddy sheep, candy, a shirt (I was eaten by a goat, and I LOVED IT!). You pay (quite a lot, gift shop items are ridiculously costly), but somehow you neglect the little donation box on the side of the counter, asking for pennies and dimes to help aid the homeless, the hungry, and the poor.


Why is this?
Allow me to explain:


According to my mom, who is a great money-saver at heart, the saying "if you don't see where the money is going, then don't let it go" is her moral for life. And although this is a great way to live without the worries of online shopping, this also might explain why people are more hesitant to feed people than animals.
Simply stated, dropping a few pennies into a donation box does not necessarily mean the pennies will be transferred to some poor hungry soul on the streets. As far as we know, those pennies might just as well be in the cashier's own pocket at the end of the day, or in the pocket of some high-up official who planned the whole thing. This also applies to those "Adopt-A-Child" programs, which is just as affordable as the animal feed (a dollar a day), but does not give you the safety of knowing and seeing where your money goes to. Perhaps it never reaches the child. 365 dollars a day might diminish to about 10 dollars after the fees have been paid for the transportation of the money, and for the people involved in the program. After all, every job needs to pay its workers.
Another factor is that we simply don't feel bad for them. Many people may age is brought up on the fact that the many homeless people around the Downtown region is there because they don't try to get a job, or because they are drug/alcohol addicts. And while this may be true for some of them, we naturally believe that behind every dirty, unkempt face, there is a stash of cocaine or other unidentified white powder. Giving money to those people feels the same as giving money to drug dealers or beer/wine stores.

The moral today? As much as we should worry about the animals, and share with them what they can (its only fair, since they share their hay), we should probably focus more on our more human neighbors. After all, we can only help others when we can fully help ourselves first.
So go out, share that hey, to people AND animals!

Today's Surroundings: Darkroom
Today's Object: Red Light-bulb
Today's Feelings: Turquoise


PS: Of course, this might not be the case with everyone. Hopefully this isn't the average person's viewpoints either.
PPS: The "saying" was a quote from Socrates. No, I wasn't serious.

No comments:

Post a Comment

A penny for your thoughts?