People are Basically Good at Heart
- Pipeline
- Opinions And Editorials
Author: Rick Snedeker
Released 5 June 2003
A friend of mine, a Palestinian, told me how he felt bad all day once when he
backed his car over the tail of a small cat that had been napping quietly atop
one of the vehicle’s tires.
At least he hopes it was the tail. The terrorized animal, letting out a
spine-tingling shriek, vanished into the world, so my friend was not sure,
exactly, which body part he ran over. Or what ultimately became of the blameless
little creature.
Another friend of mine, a Saudi, talks with great love for his family,
especially his beautiful and bright-eyed young daughter, who, it is clear,
resides in a special, protective place in his heart.
A woman I know, of Iranian origin, tells the story of a 6-year-old Afghani
orphan émigré she found living in the streets of Iran. The little boy told her
that his father was dead and he came to Iran to work and help support his
family.
The woman tried to give the boy some money, but he said, proudly, “No. I am
not a beggar. I am a worker. If you give me work, I will do it.
“What work do you do?” she asked.
“I polish shoes,” the boy said.
So, the woman, even though she was wearing suede shoes, which polish ruins,
asked the boy to polish her shoes. She walked past the boy’s corner three times
in the next hour to get her shoes polished.
“It was the only way I could give him money,” she said.
Another Saudi friend told me about how he once got stranded in Japan with
little money for several months during his college-student days. People he
didn’t know took him into their homes, he said.
Life can be brutal. But, fortunately, the occasional horrors generally stand
out monstrously against the barely noticed routine days — days where the vast
majority of people all over our lovely, blue planet are inevitably generous,
loving, gentle and kind.