The Story

It's just part of a story, actually quite a lot of stories,

 the part where the third son or the stepdaughter

 sent on the impossible errand through the uncanny forest

 comes across a fox with its paw caught in a trap

 or little sparrows fallen from the nest

 or some ants are in trouble in a puddle of water.

 He frees the fox, she puts the fledglings in the nest,

 they get the ants safe to their ant-hill.

 The little fox will come back later

 and lead him to the castle where the princess is imprisoned,

 the sparrow will fly before her to where the golden egg 

is hidden, 

the ants will sort out every poppyseed for them

 from the heap of sand before the fatal morning,

 and I don't think I can add much to this story.

 All my life it's been telling me

 if I'll only listen who the hero is

 and how to live happily ever after.

---Ursula K. Le Guin

This is a poem for all time, posted at a particular time in which the US government is cutting all funding for immunizations against deadly infectious diseases such as malaria in the poorest countries in the world, which the institution on the ground estimates will result in the painful deaths of more than a million children.  

Previous announced cuts will likely result in starvation for many more, as well as blindness and debilitating illness.  It's estimated that more than 11,000 additional people have already died of tuberculosis since funding through USAID was stopped, and TB infections are predicted to increase worldwide this year by nearly a third.

For decades, the United States has supported immunizations partly out of self-interest: to stop the disease outbreaks before they reach the US.  But ever since the Marshall Plan saved Europe from starvation after World War II, a component of such programs has been compassion.  Yes, US farmers benefitted from selling grain and other foodstuffs to the US government to be distributed in poor countries, but they did so proudly under the slogan, We feed the world. 

Now cruelty and brutality are official policy, which the administration apparently feels no obligation to defend or even explain. Sudden massive cuts to food banks and school lunches, Medicaid and Social Security, public health and emergency services--policies of faceless cruelty are now attacking the most vulnerable people within the US as well--the disabled, the disenfranchised, the old and the poor.  And children.

Those who believe cruelty is necessary to succeed in the world would scoff at this poem, because for them it means living in a fantasy world, a fairy-tale.  But traditional stories have transmitted wisdom for untold centuries.  Cooperation is the strategy for success of nearly every living species, as science learns over and over.  "You'd do the same for me" is the ethic that supports survival, as well as happiness.

But for each of us, it is a matter of personal commitment.  There are lots of words for the actions suggested in this poem, such as altruism and empathy.  To me compassion says it best: to feel together. 

 A word describing these particular actions is even simpler: kindness. The longer I live the more I feel the primary importance of kindness.