There are some things that you say that have some sense or truth in them.
But I think you lack the practical experience of being there; either a beneficiary or a 'helper', for want of a better word.
There was a time when a can of tinned meat would have made my day. There's just so much rice and soup you can eat. I still love tins of luncheon meat today. So strange how much joy I get from eating as much as I want of it. My children really dislike it; there's probably a message there.
I was helped out of where I was by a man who didn't have a great deal more than I did at a time when I needed it. But that didn't happen on day 1. I was offered help more than once, given help more than once in fact, but for some reason that one took.
We don't know, or at least I don't know, what it is that makes something work in such a situation or not. But I do know that giving someone a can of tinned meat doesn't make it worse. We need to keep helping, all different kinds of help.
On the other hand, we do need a better managed and better targeted aid and welfare system. I could have got aid I am sure, but to walk into a Government office and ask for help is admitting stuff to the world, and to oneself, that one gets through the day by denying.
It is an acceptance of where you are, and that isn't easy.
What we should not do, cause or expect is to make people feel grateful at the time, because again that takes them back to feelings of awareness and acceptance as well as a lowering of their own feelings of self-worth.. Some hope of paying it forward is all that we should expect.
We have one veteran, a man not in the best of health, who needs financial help. He is old, and proud, but needs help. We are very careful to frame it as him receiving what is an entitlement, because he would find being "helped" as mortifying and he might just refuse out of pride"
He flew bombers in WWII. You just never know.
Really, get involved. It will change your perspective, I am almost sure.
For me, that is quite enough blatant soul bearing for one day. Too much, probably. But don't think that me stepping out of this conversation doesn't mean that I don't think there is a really important point here.
To paraphrase, I've been there and I've been here. I remember just how bad being there was, and that I was helped out, so I do a lot to pay it forward as much as I can".
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