Caitlin Clark plays basketball with a wizard capacity to successfully feed the ball to her colleagues who then score points. That is what is called and assist, and she already does that eight times a game on average, setting a record for rookies. A friend of mine, now deceased, says he once had 47 points in a high school game and after his senior year was accused of never having had an assist! Clark gives up the ball easily, vigorously, and artfully, for the sake of the win, the team, and the game.
Michelle Obama, speaking at the Democratic National Convention last week, beautifully touts the generosity it takes to be a mother, day in and day out, doing-for, teaching, encouraging, disciplining, guiding, as well as regularly cleaning, cooking, tidying, reflecting, deciding, and demonstrating for at least one child all else it takes to eventually become a quality adult.
What those two women have in common in spades, is what may be the most vital virtue of all – generosity. It is evolving among us humans and within us and may save us yet. Can our top politicians lead us in this, or are they still too preoccupied to engage in interpersonal generosity at all? And how can they integrate immediate care of people into policy without that virtue of interpersonal generosity?
There are at least three aspects of life in which generosity is not only invaluable, but essential to the thriving of the human race. Generosity helps evolution poke along as it does, in myriad ways, most of which we cannot see. But generosity is highly obvious in these three arenas: parenting, intimate loving, and dedication to humanity. We as a human race cannot move forward without the generosity these three life arenas need to flourish.
Intimate Loving – Falling in love is the most influential and universal aspect of life in which we are yanked into engagement with another person that so vividly enhances our human spirit. Falling in love also challenges our human spirit to the max. Learning to be generous in many ways gives this arena a chance to flourish and help us thrive. Initially, as we all know, that “lifts us up where we belong” feeling (An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982) is almost always brief. Romance challenges us to continue growing up, and it is a struggle at which most relationships fail . Generosity is like the electricity that drives the romance mechanism, and if it doesn’t take hold, the relationship either fails or lives miserably, on and on.
For thousands of years now it has been recognized that men and women differ from one another in major ways. That provides us a chance to learn how to be generous. While this is true for most, it is not for all. Every romantic love relationship is different, though in some ways they are all the same. Like faces of the earth’s people, all unique yet all are faces. Even infants recognize a face when they see one, despite the fact that each one is observably unique.
The ways of inviting us to learn to be generous in romance are myriad. Lovers need to talk and engage sexually. But some are more frequent in their sexual thirst, and others are more needing of conversation. The latter, women, generally cannot get aroused without emotional connection, partially through talking, in gentle tones, with positive attitudes, accompanied by fetching glances, affectionate touch, loving engagement, and comfortable surroundings. The flows of experience that arouse women generally differ from those of men. More confusion has occurred from this difference for millennia than probably anything else. We know this, and still we fail, repeatedly. Something is missing. Most often it is a dearth of generosity.
My best friend for many years was dying a few years ago, and talking, musing about his life and life itself. He made many memorable statements philosophizing about life and love. One of his stark statements was not for everybody. But it was true for him, who had been married, presumably happily, for forty years. He said, “You know, women are really stingy.”
He meant that they don’t seem to care that, for men, love includes physical affection and sex far more often than women, maybe three times as often. It their man is going to keep feeling loved, women will need to respond sexually more often than they feel like it, doing their part to enkindle the process in themselves and their man. Ignoring that fact starves men for love, who then find meaning in their work/career, their buddy recreation, or their children. Or they find the path of finding other women, becoming violent, or depressive discouragement about life itself.
On the other hand I have seen both of my sons sit and listen to their wives for many minutes when reconnecting after the work day. Saying little, they sit looking mostly at their wives, responding non-verbally, now asking a pointed question, now validating, nodding often, occasionally sharing a bit about their own point of view, but mostly just hearing, and hearing, and hearing. They are loving, giving attention, generously.
Here are some editorial opinions:
(for a truly funny rendition of this see: Monique Marvez: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/miyAxFJN7r3pqL6R/?mibextid=KsPBc6
Most of us men do well with a few words, though we may be gaining a bit from the days when we hunted much of the time and kept quiet to succeed, while women worked around fires with children and learned to share, invent, nurture, and connect emotionally. We men may be catching up, but slowly, as evolution always is. We men, almost universally, need to increase our wooing. That takes generosity in giving, subservience, reflection, and activated imagination.
Both women and men need to be more generous with each other with freer compliments, frequent validations, and gracefulness about each others’ mistakes, ineptness, and surprising ignorance about specific things. We need to cut down on criticism, especially redundant complaints. Otherwise we become nags and even verbally abusive. Such are the paths to divorce, or maybe worse, discouragement sinking into silence, quiet resentment, passive acting out, frustrated violence, and abandonment.
Better to keep on learning how to be generous in words and thoughtful, surprising actions, even when we don’t feel like it.
Generosity with Strangers – The future of generosity will include being bountiful in complimenting strangers. For example, last week my wife and I were shopping at Costco at which we sometimes separate briefly to optimize our time efficiency at procurement. I saw a tall young lady, shopping alone, and immediately was drawn to her calm, slightly smiling, warm countenance. As I passed her I simply said, “You’re magnificent”. In the three seconds that took, I saw her smile widen and she said nothing. My wife and I ran into her twice more and her look of recognition of me was confirming of my impression of her. I’m sure it enhanced her day. And what did it cost me?
Granted there may be peril in such free compliments. Some people would call it flirting, but from an 83 year old man accompanied by his wife there is little chance of that here. We old guys can add enjoyment to many people we meet simply by complimenting their dogs, their infants, and whatever else is fetching about them, and do so with ease. We can in a real sense, improve the sphere of all forms of love gradually surrounding the planet just a bit by verbalizing our inner impressions that are edifying for strangers.
What has this to do with current political leaders and potential ones? It illustrates that their chief role of improving humanity can be power they carry as father and mother figures, filling the holes in people’s project of learning to treasure themselves. When compliments to strangers are authentic, rather than forced, manufactured, exaggerated, and manipulative, they use their elevated position to some of its greatest potential. Do you see your candidate using their own genuine impressions of the beauty in ordinary people to share what they see to edify, support, and build up their esteem?
When my oldest son was working as a master controller at a TV station he told me about a new colleague who he and his fellow staff members saw as unusually sharp technically, but almost completely lacking in social skills and insight. I asked what he and the staff were doing with that. My son used the word “big him up” for how they had decided to help the young man with some level of autism, to augment his self-esteem. The future of generosity will include intentionally “bigging up” those around us, and even strangers, when we can.
Questions for potential top politicians, discerning whether they have a measure of the virtue of generosity:
Would/does your spouse consider you to be a generous person? What did they say in answer to that questions?
When was the last time you remember giving your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend a free and substantive verbal compliment?
How do your children, if any, think about you as personally and affectionately engaged with you as they were growing up? Were you personally present, “there for them”, available enough to them when they were hurting, confused, anxious, or alarmed? How open were you to being interrupted by them with their concerns or questions? How would you evaluate yourself in that regard?
Is your stance about new policies too stingy with government resources for the people who need government most, or too flagrant with the dole to anyone who whines? How have you negotiated that conflict, and found a middle ground? Do believe there IS a middle ground?
When was the last time you were generous to a stranger, in compliment, material, listening time, or support of any kind?
Gordon J Hilsman is a retired clinical educator now living with his wife of 44 years in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of Assessing the CHARACTER of Candidates for National Political Office: In Search of a Collaborative Spirit. He can be reached at [email protected] or www.spiritualclinician.com
