When you are soaked up in a certain life long enough, you see things differently. And it took me quite a long time and cost me something painful to accept such a simple principle. Before beginning with the bizarre link between the typhoon and I being resented by someone, I want to briefly portray my character in the past. I used to be an unbelievably sympathetic person who sees charity not only a way to make one feel less guilty, but most importantly a sacred obligation to which the educated are all to fall heir. However, ever since I had obtained my M.A. degree and used it as a means to make a living, numerous clashes of my firmly believing in humanity and the cruel reality keep preying on me. For instance, whenever the reality gives me chances to practice what I preach about sympathy in class, my subsequent behaviors have no longer been driven by my pure impulse to help but by a stingy evaluation of its probability of gaining or losing profits. It is not until the aftermath brought by the typhoon did I start to think about what changed me. Last month, my mom and I were told by the local representative that we now officially belong to the classification of the low-income family. By nature of its definition, it means that what we earned in a year is way under the average income comparing to most of the families in Taiwan. Having said so, I did not particularly feel salivated nor helped by it in any realistic way. Because, I know clearly that it is merely a favor that tries to buy my and my mom’s vote, once the campaign is over, no one would care about it anymore. And I guess the life I have been living in the past few years has inconspicuously altered what I used to think about the world. Coincidentally, the typhoon came as the most unwelcome visitor and tested my being. The tragedy brought by the typhoon happened so unexpectedly with such a ruthless and unbearable consequence that people on the island—whether they lost anyone or not are all bereaved and mourned for those no longer with us. Nevertheless, to me, it is exactly the time that a paradox emerges, a paradox that tests my consistency in realizing my philosophy and my integrity. The test came to me in a form of an argument, launched by one of my friend, who in a casual occasion asked me "Frank, how much money insofar have you donated ? ". Though I disliked the implication underneath his interrogation, I still managed to respond to him honestly by saying “not a single penny,yet. ”. My friend looked at me quite surprising and satirized how my being cold and ungrateful to the people on the land disgusts him and how my lectures about morality and humanity in class are the biggest irony that shamefully survives in the entire human history. Honestly, I’m simply too tired to try to rebut nor to justify my circumstance to him, so I plainly responded to him ꄊ "What took you so long to realize that I was a pure hypocritical asshole? In the class, I simply tell them what they want to hear. And that’s the business, isn’t it?”. After that quarrel, we have not spoken a word to each other. Recently, I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about what if I had told my friend that my mother is currently taking an expensive medication not covered unfortunately by the healthy insurance policy to treat her cardio problem, which may lead to a fatal consequence, if remained unchecked, would my friend have reacted differently and be understandable that money serves to me more than just the building block of my future but quite possibly the continuity of someone I care, cherish, and love. I can’t help but wonder. --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 218.170.141.17 ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.141.17 (08/20 23:42) ※ 編輯: maximus1523 來自: 218.170.141.17 (08/20 23:47)