I opened Wikipedia yesterday to check a few facts about Web3 (whatever that is) and saw an earnest donation request by Wikipedia. I am not a philanthropist on any scale and I had shared an interesting story of one of the few of my noble deeds. But I never said no to Wikipedia whenever they requested.
Wikipedia is synonymous with invaluable and reliable knowledge on the internet. I am not sure what we would do if there was no Wikipedia. I feel pity when I see Wikipedia struggling to get enough donations to survive. Let me request you to donate to Wikipedia even if it is a small amount if you haven’t done it recently.
Moving on, it’s funny to see how we struggle to decide to donate even if it’s for a worthy cause. Also, many times people think that they were quite benevolent but they may not be so. I think one should check with the other party before they make their opinion. I am reminded of two funny stories, one fictional and the other real, on this kind of illusion.
A highly successful MD of MNC was going home in his car when he saw two men along the roadside eating grass.
Disturbed by the sight, he ordered his driver to stop and got out to investigate.
He asked one man-
“Why are you eating grass?”
“We don’t have any money for food,” the poor man replied.
“We have to eat grass.”
“Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I’ll feed you” the MD said.
“But sir, I have a wife and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree”.
“Bring them along,” the MD replied.
Turning to the other poor man he stated,
“You come with us also.”
The second man, in a pitiful voice then said,
“But sir, I also have a wife and three children with me!”
“Bring them all, as well,” the MD answered.
They all entered the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as it was.
One of the poor fellows turned to the MD and said,
“Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.”
The MD replied,
“Glad to do it. You’ll really love my place; the grass is almost 1 meter high…!”
Source: whatsapp group chat, origin: unknown
The real-life story dates back to when we were newly married and my wife had a day job at a diagnostic lab. She is a trained technician. They had to deal with all kinds of pathological samples but in this incident, they had to deal with a “pathological human sample”. This gentleman appeared in the lab with his samples in a pouch as instructed earlier. She asked him to take them out and put them in the designated tray. She probed him when she saw him leaving a big pouch in the tray. He clarified that although the lab had instructed him to give a minuscule stool sample, he felt that he could give more and brought all that he could…
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(featured image: Photo by Ferenc Tibodi from Pexels)
