--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: <snip> > I reposted this short film widely, and have been amazed > at the response it's gotten. For me it just nailed the > whole compassion and boddhicitta and "making a difference" > thang.
One would be so much more impressed with your glowing response to "the whole compassion and boddhicitta thang" if you hadn't gone on to exploit it to do your usual take-any-opportunity-to-put-people-down thang. > It's an extraordinary film in my opinion because first we > are set up (by playing to stereotypes) to think the worst > of and expect the worst from the main character. Actually we're set up to feel compassion for the main character, to expect to have our hearts warmed by somebody doing something kind *for him*, possibly even something that will turn his life around. The stereotype the film plays to initially is that we, the audience, sitting well-fed in our homes before our fancy computers, are the sort of people who will take pity on the poor homeless beggar and generously share with him a tiny piece of our material abundance, for which he will be pathetically grateful. Many > people in the audience probably took one look at him and > reacted the way the store clerk did, with a snarled lip > and a subtle "moving away," as if to have as little contact > with him as possible. I would bet that a certain percentage > of viewers never got beyond the first part of that scene, > expecting him to buy booze. Their loss. And I'd be willing to bet that percentage was either zero or very close to it. IOW, the person "expecting the worst" is you--but of the audience rather than the main character. > There are two things I love about it. The first is that, > as hinted at in the title, he spends *every cent* of what > he's been given, all of it to help other people. He doesn't > keep even a penny for himself. But the next day, the cycle > starts again with the same penny he gave away returning > to him. What goes around comes around. And now we see another example of what the film did for you. Instead of humbling you as it was designed to do by measuring the degree of your own compassion against the genuinely saintly compassion of the poor beggar, it triggered your sense of superiority and led you to fantasize about how much more compassionate you are than other people: > The other thing is that this film celebrates "small ges- > tures" and the performance of small acts of kindness and > compassion as a way of affecting change. I just can't tell > you how tired I am of hypocrites who talk, talk, talk about > how much they want to create world peace or get everybody > enlightened or achieve some Big Lofty Goal, and then consis- > tently treat the actual people they meet on the street every > day like shit. But it doesn't strike you as hypocritical to gush over a film illustrating the compassion of a beggar for people he doesn't even know and then treat the folks you've known for years on FFL like shit. > I thought this guy was as much of a hero as > I've ever seen onscreen, and I have nothing but praise for > Sharon Wright for writing, producing, and directing the film. Something that impressed me was the long list of local businesses the filmmaker thanked at the end for their assistance. If you look at the technical credits, this was a full-dress, professional production, and cooperating with it must have required a good deal of inconvenience. Kudos to those businesses for their compassion as well. > Change doesn't come from thinking you have to raise millions > of dollars to make it happen. It comes from making it happen, > no matter how much, or how little, you already have. > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Tom Pall <thomas.pall@> wrote: > > > http://www.flickspire.com/m/Share_This/changeforadollar?lsid=161f9da9b7692b6854ca64548e80ab61
