In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything
We live in a time when dropping the phrase the miraculous scope of human generosity into conversation may illicit responses that are anything but generous. You speak of human generosity as if you could really find this in the world today. Human generosity? In your dreams! Sadly, we’re becoming more accustomed to scarcity with supply chain issues, shortages, and recession rearing its ugly head. And in the face of scarcity, many–perhaps most–of us tend to batten down the hatches, fearing rougher waters ahead. Like baby formula (toilet paper, cleaning products, and now baby formula???), generosity is often in short supply.
And yet, the miraculous scope of human generosity continues to thrive. Several years ago when some friends and I visited Europe, we turned to each other multiple times a day and said, People are so good. We struggled hauling oversized suitcases (what were we thinking?), reading train schedules, deciphering directions. Time and time again, natives came to our rescue, most often even when we hadn’t asked. I’m sure we looked forlorn and utterly clueless, like a group of grandmas on holiday (which we were!) The generosity of these Italians, Swiss, and French was humbling. We were wholly at the mercy of strangers who loaded our monstrous suitcases onto trains, accompanied us to the places we needed to be to hail cabs and join tour groups. We willingly surrendered before their generosity and understood, even then, that a lifetime of thank yous wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Last month on my birthday, I was in the checkout line at HyVee when the young man at the register commented on the cake I was buying. I told him that it was my birthday, so I decided to pick out my own cake. As he was ringing up my last grocery items, he motioned to the rows of candy behind the register and said, If you had to choose one, which one would you choose? I scanned the rows and said, Snickers, it would have to be Snickers. He asked the employee sacking if he would take over the register, so that he could buy me a Snickers for my birthday. He pulled a Snickers off the shelf, then hesitated and said that he knew they had jumbo Snickers, which was what I should have for my birthday. On the top row, he finally located the jumbo variety and presented it to the temporary checker for purchase. Then he handed it to me and wished me a happy birthday. I pushed my cart into the parking lot wearing one of those goofy smiles plastered across my face. I might’ve even been singing as I loaded my groceries into my car. In Man of La Mancha, Dale Wasserman writes, I come in a world of iron…to make a world of gold. On June 11th, I entered a world of produce and canned goods, an ordinary world which a high school student generously transformed into a world of gold.
In The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker writes:
People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one’s promises reducing a partner’s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.
We’ve all witnessed–or been the beneficiaries of–random acts of kindness: the driver ahead of you in the fast food restaurant line pays for your meal; a woman offers to hold your baby so you can tend to your screaming toddler; a man finds you stranded on the road with a flat tire and changes it for you; and a kid for whom $20 would buy the world runs after you to return the $20 bill you dropped at the concession stand. There are times when people demonstrate their generosity without the slightest hope or expectation for payback. And perhaps generosity does help us discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies, as Trivers, Frank, and Hishleifer contend. Certainly we’re drawn to those whose generosity seems as natural as breathing. Good people, we say. salt of the earth kind of folk. These are the individuals who frequently become our best friends, the friends to whom we turn in times of joy and sorrow, the friends who anticipate what we need before we say a word. Their generosity is a hallmark of their devotion and care.
French writer Simone Weil argues that [a]ttention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. How generous is the individual who simply attends to your presence! To be noticed is remarkably generous. As clichéd as it may be, the gift of time and undivided attention is probably one of the most coveted gifts. In a world of self-professed multi-taskers, we long for someone to look us directly in the eyes and to assure us that we hold their attention. This kind of attention says you matter to me. This kind of attention is a generous oasis is a noisy, busy world.
We’ve all known truly generous people who open their homes and hearts without a thought. They’ll give the shirt off their own backs, their own beds (and take the sofa for themselves), their time, talents, and money to others. Simone de Beauvoir, a French philosopher, understands the spirit behind this kind of generosity. She writes: That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. Perhaps the essence of generosity is found in this paradox: giving all, offering, as novelist James Baldwin claims, what most people guard and keep and yet feeling as if this costs you nothing. This paradox also lives in Jesus’s words to his disciples: For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it (Matthew 16:25).
Generally speaking, many of us can be generous when it costs us little, when we find ourselves with an abundance–or at least with some to spare. But to be generous when it costs us much, to be generous when we find ourselves in survival mode, that is the miraculous scope of human generosity that Elizabeth Gilbert contends compels us to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices. To the young man who gifted me with a Snickers at the grocery store, to the multitude of European natives who made my trip so wonderful, to my family and friends who give so freely, and to the many strangers who’ve generously lent a helping hand, I offer my eternal and sincere thanks. I aim to keep thanking you for as long as I have voice.
