Separate good will for each thing
Good will is a valuable thing.
Somehow, in our brains, we know exactly how much good will we have towards any number of things. Our wife, our baby, our job, people who walk slow, rain, people who are always late, people who drive you to the airport, people who hang out with you with no notice, our parents, our computer, AT&T, etc.
It would be interesting to investigate just how we are able to have completely different amounts of good will towards all of these things without it seeming contradictory to ourselves. How is it possible to have so little good will for a long line at the post office while having so much good will for the person who saves our spot for us while we run to get a coffee? It goes deep into our old brains’ sense of fairness, justice, manners, and what’s right and wrong. An early feature of our cerebral cortex, most likely.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
It’s not strictly a matter of the brain (as an organ), see. It’s something much basic: Instinct. You feel little good will for the long line, because it’s delaying you, which, at its core, is against your benefit. On the other hand, you have much good will for the person who saves the spot for you because what they do is to your benefit.
In short, this is the “civilized human” version of instinct regarding our own benefits. Animals have it too, you know. Of course, it’d be splendid for a person to have good will towards anyone, transcending the instinct-limited state.
August 31st, 2010 at 5:46 pm
This makes me think of David Foster Wallace’s speech “This is Water.”
He actually discusses line waiting. His thesis is that it is a choice what you think and do in these frustrating situations and that the choice can make all the difference. Do you choose to experience empathy for the checkout person? to be angry? to find someone deserving your anger and to hate on them?
His claim would be that the person who has good will towards everyone really gets it and understands that these things are choices.