Howdy reader,
Let’s roll through a couple more of the fortunes I’ve held onto for the past few years.
Your ability to love will help a child in need.
I can imagine this fortune leading to a contented diner becoming overwhelmed by emotion – such is the effect of inspiring words interacting with a stomach full of Peking ravioli. However, I’m here to put the brakes on this one purely for child welfare reasons – prescribing ‘love’ as The Ideal Solution overlooks the effectiveness of food, clothing, shelter, and many other tangible things in terms of meeting a child’s needs.
True, False, or Racist?
False. May I continue my rant?
I also think this fortune needlessly divides people into groups called ‘children’ and ‘not children’. Why can’t love help an adult in need? The short answer is that it can. The fortune simply plays on the relative fear we have of adults that we do not have of children. We think of children as helpless but the better term is powerless – a child is simply less capable of hurting us than an adult and we therefore have less fear of a child. This is a good instinct, I think, but it’s useless in the context of simply helping others in need because I do not think our fear of being hurt should influence our decisions in this regard. It’s hard to help anyone without risking something. We should simply try to help, acknowledge the inherent risk, and accept the results – even if those results are not obviously helpful.
Keep it or chuck it?
Keep it.
The fortune isn’t perfect but I think the complexity of the underlying idea is a critical consideration.
There’s no boosting a man up the ladder unless he’s willing to climb.
It seems like we have a bit of a theme today! My position here remains the same – we should try to help people. As long as it’s advantageous to move up the ladder, we should risk what we can afford to help others move up.
True, False, or Racist?
False. I can think of a million reasons why someone might be unwilling to climb up a ladder. What if his leg hurts? What if it goes against her religion? What if it’s windy? Someone watching this scene could think up a really cute story – well gee, so and so isn’t willing to climb, so I won’t boost him. Narratives are an obviously important part of what we do here on our little blue planet but I will be the first to tell you that we all waste a lot of time inventing stories that ascribe interesting, malicious, or unlikely explanations to observed behavior.
Keep it or chuck it?
Chuck it – this was arguably my least favorite fortune.
