Charity is no Fun?

Posted on October 7, 2004 in Appeals and Goodwill Geocaching

The word is out: charity is no fun. That was the response of geocaching.com to my idea. “We want to keep the sport light and fun” said Jeremy of geocaching.com after others complained about “the politics” of Amnesty International. Such complaints always strike me as odd because of all organizations out there, AI is one of the few which strives to judge by a universal standard. The problem with individuals on both the right and the left is that they often only see the atrocities of the other side. AI holds the view that torture and political violence is never right.

In response I wrote:

It’s sad that we can preach about picking up trash and saving the forests, but we can’t mix emergency relief and the rights of prisoners of conscience everywhere (according to a universal standard, regardless of politics — the AI organizers I know are just as incensed about Castro as they are about Pinochet) with this activity.

I see that the atmosphere here is too heavy-hearted for a little charity, so I will drop the issue here and now. I’ll spend my time working with those who understand that fun and charity do mix. They have light hearts and eager smiles which is why I love to hang with them.

It’s the same old same old “lighten up” routine: when they feel their materialism challenged, down comes the iron glove of “fun”.

It won’t keep me from geocaching, but it does put a spin on the attitudes of many of the people involved. With their win-only mentality, they must be petty bores indeed. Lynn and I will just find other people like us to do it with.

What are they going to do? Take away my GPS?