As a kid I always cringed extra hard whenever I would witness one of those adult moments where there is a polite refusal to get something. This doesn’t make sense to any kid, but I especially dwelled on it, being the actual embodiment of the “everything is all about me and what I can get out of it” caricature I parody as an adult. Whenever a family friend would insist on paying for a dinner or compensating for a favor or chipping in monetarily for something my father thought inappropriate there would be that excruciating exchange containing the “no, I insist” – “no *I* insist” dance that drove me nuts. The worst was when the person would actually hand cash to my father and he would refuse it. There wasn’t a single time that I tried to understand why such an occurrence was taking place – I just saw cash money RIGHT fricken there, being offered willfully – sometimes even to the point of the other person pleading that it would give them great pleasure to be able to give the money and it was torture every time. Every time I piped up with my irrelevant vote that Pops should take the money. Cuz why the hell wouldn’t you? Many times the person would even be frustrated afterward and I always thought that should have served a lesson to my dad, like “SEE? See what happens when you don’t let people give you money?? You are ruining lives! Take the cash God dammit!”.
But of course, my dad was following a principal only understandable with class and maturity, so it wasn’t til many years later that it made sense to me. I’m not now referring to the manipulative “let me take care of it” mafia style of always being the person to whom the favor is owed. I’m referring to legit situations where it would be inappropriate to receive something a person wants or feels obligated to give. While I understand this principal intellectually as an adult, it still burns a little every time since that self-serving ID within is always whispering in my ear to steal everything I possibly can and burn the town to the ground in my wake.
I have enough of that temptation within. I don’t need you people mucking my shiz up with your shady offers and/or spineless subservience.
This has already happened to me over a dozen times in my media business and its not even a giant successful international evil-corporation yet. I hate it every time. A partner or potential partner or former partner or salesman or complete stranger who just wants my ear for a little will offer a gift or to pay for an important expense or to offer the aid of their team of workers on something – which is awesome, unless… And it’s the stupid “unless” that makes it garbage every time.
If you accept help, gifts or labor from someone whom you know for a fact beforehand that they will not benefit from giving, then you are stealing. Stealing makes you evil. Especially if its done often. If you’re an urchin on the streets of London and one day after pressing your dirty orphan face up against the Bakers shop window seeing his delicious concoctions and you just want to end the pain in your stomach for a short time and you snatch a loaf and run off with it – then fine. You still owe the baker, deserve punishment and so on – but you’re not blackening your soul the way a conscious unnecessary theft-because-you-can opportunity.
The common instance of this for me is a nice dinner or a nice gift from someone wishing to do business with me. A couple years ago my business was in a rough time and I was desperately treading water to get profits back up to where they needed to be after having turned down a big deal that would have saved my ass but also basically sold everything I had created. I got an equally ass-saving offer that was unfortunately equally unacceptable, but the offer came with goodies… Officially, they were no-strings-attached, as is most often the case. But they weren’t just donations to my awesomeness. They were offers made as good-faith gestures so that I would consider the larger plans they wanted. Without boring you with the business details: I could not consider what they wanted. I had a different plan that I was working on crafting and that ultimately worked out for me, by the way, but at the time I was in a rut. I could have easily pretended that I was going to hear out and genuinely consider what these people wanted from me and enjoy their perks in the mean time but that wouldn’t have been right. And it’s not even a super-hero style commitment to justice that drives the majority of my moral GPS on this. I’m still over 50% the self-serving kid who wanted things mostly for himself – and then for other people to enjoy afterward. It is self serving that I deny these kinds of offers. Because while I would gain some physical things, I would lose more in the non-physical than it’s worth.
I’m not talking about being moral for morality’s sake or living up to a Deity standard of behavior that we know is demanded of us because stories spread by word of mouth hundreds of years ago translated to scrolls which were translated to books which were re-written into other books which were assembled into modern books tell us so. I’m looking at logic and reason and using the knowledge of human psychology to do what is best for ME.
I understand initial confusion over how not taking advantage of other people could possibly be best for me, but it’s not too hard a concept. If you give just a little thought into how you actually want to live your life instead of just mindlessly floating through it, then your daily operation is much easier. Then every decision isn’t quite the dilemma as it normally could be because you’ve got a base-code to work off of. If you have found this groove and like it, then deviations from it become troublesome to a point where they are more trouble than they are worth. If your analysis of facts and reality and how you as a unique individual comport with them, given all your various traits and desires and thoughts and history lead you to decide that a certain mode of operation is in your best interest, then small gains that go against it are still not in your best interest. It’s not a perfect analogy but – If you decide you want to professionally compete in a weight lifting competition and you are gaining purpose, confidence, satisfaction, serenity and happiness from it – then when someone offers you a weeks vacation from your training in order to consider working for them at a fast food company, it clearly is not in your best interest. Vacations are nice, but if you can’t afford that week off from the pursuit of your goal then it doesn’t actually benefit you to pretend like you are considering the offer that you actually have no intention of agreeing to.
Similarly, if I willfully and knowingly were to take things that were contingent upon my consideration of something I have no actual intent on considering (stealing), it would muck up my otherwise clear flow of operation. It would distract me from my actual goal and force me to provide mental recourses to keeping up the charade or to watch my back after putting unnecessarily bad karma in my wake by unapologetically taking, creating a pattern of screwing people over that is difficult to only consciously do “sometimes” and then revert back to normal. Human brains have great difficulty with stuff like that and who needs the stress? I sure don’t.
Moral choices are like lying in that you have 3 options to approach them with:
1. Lie frequently and just keep good track of remembering the lies so you don’t suffer the consequences of them. (See: Politicians)
2. Lie frequently and unapologetically, making no effort to cover your tracks and simply barrel through the consequences as they arise with a “who cares?” attitude. (See: Yolo)
3. Decide that honesty is a virtue you wish to maintain, tell the truth by default and readily take responsibility for the times you fail the standard.
Different percentages fit best for different people, but #3 is easiest for me, gives me the clearest mind and offers me the serenity and confidence in approaching new and old situations that I require to function.
It’s easier to just maintain a code of operation you’re confidant with than it is to deviate from it for apparent temporary gain.
It’s why Batman doesn’t kill. This is a commonly known fact about the comic book hero, but most people don’t know that it’s not because the character is anti-death penalty, it’s because he is self-aware enough to know that even with a mastery of a persons own psychology, there are lines that serve you better when not crossed. In the Batman series and direct-to-video movie Under the Red Hood, the Dark Knight is confronted at gunpoint by the former 2nd Robin, Jason Todd, asked why the hell he hasn’t killed the Joker (whom Todd has captured after turning into an anti-hero) yet, blaming Batman for all of the murders at the Jokers hands (that include himself) that Batmans vigilante execution could have prevented. Batman answers that he thinks about killing the Joker every damn day, but knows that if he were to take that step in willfully taking a life, it would take him to a place he would not be able to recover from.
Jason Todd: Ignoring what he’s done in the past. Blindly, stupid, disregarding the entire graveyards he’s filled, the thousands of who have suffered, the friends he’s crippled. You know, I thought… I thought I’d be the last person you’d ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would’ve done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil death-worshiping garbage and sent him off to hell.
Batman: You don’t understand. I don’t think you’d ever understood.
Jason Todd: What? What, your moral code just won’t allow for that? It’s too hard to cross that line?
Batman: No. God Almighty, no. It’d be too damned easy. All I’ve ever wanted to do is kill him. A day doesn’t go by I don’t think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture he’s dealt out to others and them end him.
Joker: Aw. So you do think about me.
Batman: But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place, I’ll never come back.
Jason Todd: Why? I’m not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I’m talking about him. Just him. And doing it because… Because he took me away from you.
Batman: I can’t. I’m sorry.
Might sound a little melodramatic as an analogy for not accepting a dinner at Nobu offered by an associate who wants to discuss a business option I know I can’t legitimately entertain, but the same principal applies. If I rationalize that I would like to enjoy a free meal at an expensive restaurant I’ve never been to or if I don’t bother rationalizing and just take the offer, wait a couple days to pretend like I was thinking it over before I give the rejection I had always intended – it would corrupt me more than a fancy dinner is worth. Not in a spiritual hippie karma way but in an actual noticeable way that would not be beneficial to me. I’m too self-aware, analytical and my memory is too good. I have enough stress over the decisions I made in pure good faith that didn’t turn out perfectly – I absolutely don’t need the stress of being a greedy jerk and trying to justify it.
None of this is high-concept stuff. It’s nothing that every lady knew a hundred years ago (and every lady who still has class knows today): Stealing is wrong and if you accept gifts with the intention of just getting the gift with no consideration as to why it is being given then you are making yourself a bad person. That is generally frowned upon.
Nichole Kidman in 2003’s Cold Mountain is a good example of this. Being a pretty southern blonde, she was courted by a nice guy who wanted to marry her. So he offered her stuff, as was the custom. Gifts that show “I like you, I can take care of you and I want to. Here…take these things and consider me as an option for your husband, won’t you?”. Kidman was in love with Jude Laws character though, so she refused the offerings despite desperately needing them. Her father died and she was all alone with no idea how the hell to butcher an animal or grow food – no money – no anything whatsoever to enable survival as an unmarried woman in 1864. But she would not steal. If she was going to die, she was going to die with a clear conscience. And bless her for it.
It’s the kind of thing I think about when I’m hauling heavy grocery bags on foot from the store because I had to dissolve a business partnership that was going to get me a car for this period I’ve been without one. While it pisses me off that I’m having to trip over the uneven North Hollywood sidewalks and get accosted by homeless crack addicts during the mile long walk almost every day, it is a better option than stealing. The plastic handles weighed down by my milk and juices that are cutting off circulation in my fingers is a better feeling than having engaged in dishonest business practice. I’m not being a hero.
I’m just not being a villain. Which is important to me especially since I am blunt, sharply worded and expect high standards of those around me – all things which frequently cast me as the villain in other peoples minds. I am fine with that as long as that casting is invalid and untrue. I don’t give a crap about what people think. I care about what I think. And unfortunately I’m too smart and self-aware to be able to make myself think things that aren’t true. So the easiest path for me is to just not be a heinous jerk so that in the events where I have to act like one, I can rest confidently knowing that it was well deserved and appropriate.
I don’t care if people think I’m a bad person as long as I’m not. I just wish people would stop trying to tempt me all the time.
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