A case for Generosity

 

Dedicated to: Sannie Ncube   

Whose generosity has split over in to many different lives.

 

There is a theme that has been recurring in books I’ve been reading, from fiction to non-fiction and even in music. I think it may just be a universal law; not as in a universally known physics law but rather a law on how the universe works. I think it boils down to the fundamental concept of generosity. The law is that when you save or help others, you inadvertently or perhaps even ultimately help yourself. In Susan Newham- Blake’s As If Born to You, Ana, who is a psychologist describes how she went into the field because she was in a way attempting to help herself. Garth Japhet (Like Water is for Fish) suffers from dysthymia throughout his childhood where he had to change schools often and spent a great deal of his childhood in tears when on the surface, nothing seemed to be wrong with his life. He decides to become a doctor when all the academic signs are pointing towards his studying law. He writes that in deciding to become a doctor, he wanted to help others but in effect he was trying to help himself, especially since he was not then aware of what was wrong with him.

Lupe Fiasco runs a similar thread in his album Drogas Wave. In his song Alan Forever, he rewrites the story of Alan’s life centred on this motif. Alan Kurdi drowned during the European immigration crisis when his family was trying to leave Syria. He was three years old and a picture of his washed up body was taken by a Turkish photographer and went viral. In Lupe’s song, Alan becomes an Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, with the ambitions of becoming a Jacques Cousteau of sorts, someone who is very comfortable in large bodies of water. A young child falls into the water and Alan saves the child and there are happy endings as opposed to Alan’s real-life endings. In his song Lupe raps: “

‘You should really feel good that you gave your help
Might get you into heaven, might raise your health
Might get a lot of blessings, might raise your wealth
Bet you ain't even know that you saved yourself’

It is in the last line where the motif is echoed. Later in the album, another song titled Jonylah Forever, which carries the theme as well. Jonylah Watkins was a 6 month year old baby who was shot in Chicago. She was with her father in a car and she was killed when a retaliatory attack took place against her father. In Lupe’s song, Hadiya Pendleton who died when she was shot in the back while standing with friends, lives instead and grows up to be a doctor. She decides to go back to the South Side to help the communities there when she could have had her pickings with regards to a job in the medical profession. In returning to Chicago working at the free clinic, Lupe writes:

‘And that's where you (Hadiya) heard the shots and quickly ran outside
And saw a man and a van and a bleeding baby (Jonylah) in his hands
Fading fast, but you knew she could survive
Did everything you could to keep this girl alive
Stabilized until the ambulance arrived
And in that moment, where you gave your help
I bet you didn't know that you saved yourself’

 

In a way, Lupe seems to be articulating that it is only in helping others, that we truly become immortal and we live forever. Richard Powers in his book, Generosity, writes that it is not a coincidence that the word gene appears in the word generosity. To be fully human, is to be generous. I, for one, support this whole idea with élan. As much as I get Richard Dawkins’ selfish gene, I am behind the generous gene. I have seen how life is all the more better for those neurons having fired together. N.E.R.D. was on to something with their band title. No one Ever Really Dies; perhaps the ones who give of their lives are the ones who never die.

Or In Lupe’s words:

You live… FOREVER!!!

 

 

LL Moeketsi