Tell me a story - about charity
Tell me a story about how people use charity.
Say there's this ongoing contest, present day or hereabouts, & some billionaire (not the one you're thinking of) has decided that they will give away five million a month to a charity.
The charity each month is chosen based on a public vote online, but people don't vote for the charity itself, oh no. They vote for an individual representative. The representative may be aged 13-19 and can campaign on/in any medium.
So it's a social media purity contest, and it gets vile. Some of the big names formally distance themselves from the contest, but kids can represent charities without being backed anyway, so everyone's complicit.
We're in a medium town. The narrator is a girl who's studying agriculture. She's just beginning to court a boy who's studying economics. They have starry eyes about solving world hunger and conflict. It's adorable.
The boy wins his application to be the next month's representative of a food bank charity.
Suddenly, there is scrutiny on his life that none of them are emotionally equipped to deal with. Quick, everyone, act natural! His parents hate the publicity but support his future.
She's happy for him but he has no time now, with all the live streams and photo shoots and Q&A sessions. Should they take a break for the duration of the campaign? Would that look worse?
"Are you actually right now asking me to stay with you for appearances? Isn't that meant to wait until we're fifty?"
"So you do see us together at fifty."
"That's not - don't change the subject!"
Naturally, his studies suffer. Their friends treat him differently. Someone in school sells his story and it's true. Someone else in school sells his story and it's not true. He accuses one of his friends of planning to sell a story, but he isn't & they damage their friendship for nothing.
But it'll all be over in a month, won't it? Win or lose, it'll go back to normal, won't it?
Flip a coin.
Heads.
Say he wins, and everyone is delighted, hurrah, well done, back to your studies. How long will it take in studying and researching and qualifying and progressing before he can make another five million difference in the world? Emotional crash! Girl is not qualified to counsel him through this!
Who is, though? A shadowy confederation of previous representatives who each had the same crash. They're going to do an overthrow.
Oh crud, it's a trilogy, isn't it.
Thank you for being here. Until next time, please enjoy the blessed silence between ideas.