Yes! Pay where you can. But also: this is charity. We need to be unafraid of admitting that and dropping the baggage associated with the word. People don't like the idea of [needing to be] being helped without expectation, but to do so is a charitable act. https://twitter.com/slbscifi/status/1245865599130980352

Ego gets locked in to language, but yes, -do- think of charity as lending each other a hand in a tough time, but don't divorce it from what it is: charity has always been giving freely as a helping hand, or giving freely full stop. None of us is above or below charity.

I know, yet again, this is the hottake no-one needed and in no way aimed at Stacey herself. (Sorry for jumping on your tweet!) This is in reaction to the wider discourse surrounding helping people during these times I've seen across media and in communities.

Rarely, if we're privileged, do we think about what charity is/means, or how people close to us might need it. At worst we feel that by giving charity we are somehow reinforcing that this person can't help themselves. Truth is we're always dependent on each other, charity or not.

This virus has made our interdependence apparent. From stock markets to stockers and stackers (where we rely on the latter, and the former relies on us (and our exploitation)), we always need others or someone needs us. Sometimes it's a give-take, sometimes it's either-or. So.

Charity can be one-off, or it can be ongoing. Being able to give charity doesn't mean what you think it means, and receiving charity doesn't mean what you think it means. If it's done right, it's an act of love, never ego, and should feel like lending a hand [in tough times].

Was this thread in any way important? You decide. We live in language, now more than ever while we're indoors on the internet. Society changes as language changes, so we have to *interrogate* how we respond to and use it and how it affects others.

I think the more we're uncomfortable with the word charity, the more we accept, reinforce or perhaps create problems that don't serve us. The sooner we take notice of undue pride (Pride and Prejudice def of pride, here), the sooner we can dismantle it & can give & receive openly

BECAUSE generosity is what we should be striving for, I think. Our reluctance to give (by 'our' I absolutely mean multi-millionaires, billionaires and too often governments) is hugely bad for everyone. Their scarcity mindset is detrimental to our mental and community health

It's v. bad when we replicate that scarcity mindset in our own lives. Charity (without pride & ego) is the antidote. Accept privilege as having being on the receiving end of huge amounts of charity (but prob gens of exploitation), then pass it forward. PASS IT FORWARD ILLIONAIRES

We think we *earn* all the things. Maybe we do to an extent, but it's also a lot of luck, being born somewhere, to someone, being in right place at the right time. Anyway, I've gone on a tangent. Just give more charity when, if & where you can. We need each other, we always have.