For the Good of All & to the Harm of None: A Worldview through a Philanthropic Lens

By Lorenzo Alexander Chambers

For the Good of All and to the Harm of None is a nonfiction writing that proposes viewing the world through a philanthropic lens and what that could mean for humanity. Using the definition of philanthropy as engaging in endeavors that advance the well-being of humanity, we must address the idea of what constitutes humanity in the face of the social construct of race. Until the thought process of every human being begins with the identification that we are all human beings first and we are affiliated with our tribe or ethnic heritages second, there will always be oppression and inequities among us.

The idea of existentialism compels us to look at our lives through the lens of being mortals in that one day we will die and leave this earth. Within this context, a pressing question becomes since one day I will leave this planet, what do I believe happens after I leave the planet? How would I be remembered, if I am remembered at all? The answers to this question give us a reason and purpose or intention with regard to how we live. Or in the absence of all of the above, maybe we live reckless, unintentional lives because what does anything really mean? At the end of the day, examining your life choices from the perspective that one day it ends can be incentive enough to change how you live and how you/we treat one another as human beings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890611109

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Existentialism

A Portal to Remember Who We Are

Finding Comfort in Uncomfortable Places

Daily Conversations of the Oppressed

Of Things Made Up of Pyrrhic Victories

Context

A Proposal

Broken Links in the Chain of Humanity

Developing a Philanthropic Mindset

Closed-Mindedness

2042

The Singular Migration

The Power of the Collective Consciousness

The Social Construct of Race

The Golden Rule

There's a Hole in the Fence

What Is Your Why?

The Paradigm Shift

An Idea

The Misnomer—Defund the Police

The Idea of Reparations

Education

Student Loans

Economics

The Zero-Sum Game of Politics

The Popular Vote versus the Electoral Vote

The Construct of White Supremacy

Leadership Rules of Engagement from a Philanthropic Perspective

The Myth of Either-Or

Where Is the Space for Righteous Indignation?

Man's Imbalance with Nature and Universal Harmony

Let Thine Food Be Thy Medicine or Thy Medicine Will Be Thine Food

Philanthropy at a Base Level

A Philanthropic Mindset Pays It Forward

An Essential Question

The Value of Shared Experiences

What Can a Philanthropic Mindset Look Like in Your Life?

Philanthropy in the Age of Our Pandemic

Drug Dealers

Whatever Happened to Questioning Everything?

Why Government?

Philanthropy through a Social Justice and Equity Lens

How Do You Measure Success?

The Aha Moment

Self-Determination Is Coupled with a Philanthropic Mindset

What Will They Say about You When You Are Gone?

The Idea of Reading

Do Something

Why Taboo

Decisions, Decisions

An Adventurous Spirit

Personal Access to Philanthropy

When Was the Last Time…

The Universe Conspires on Your Behalf

Epilogue

Epilogue 2

About the Author

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For the Good of All and to the Harm of None

A Worldview through a Philanthropic Lens

Lorenzo Alexander Chambers

Copyright © 2024 Lorenzo Alexander Chambers

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89061-109-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89061-110-9 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this book to the generations that will follow—that of my grandchildren and beyond, because any sustainable change requires the vision beyond generations and lifetimes to come. I've come to accept that mankind, in its current iteration, is still savage in nature and that the evolution process is long. As of the year 2021, Black Americans have spent more years in slavery than being free. Let that sit in your spirit for a minute. Do the math. The first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. Slavery ended in 1865. That is 246 years. 1865 to 2021 is 156 years. And some people have the nerve to suggest that Black people get over it because slavery was a long time ago.

As much as we have advanced as human beings, in terms of races and nationalities, we still kill one another because we see one another as belonging to different tribes within the social construct of race. When we look around each other and then in the news and all the things that are happening in terms of pandemics and floods and natural disasters, it would have us believe or at least consider that mankind is fast approaching its end-of-days scenario. I choose not to believe that because my hope is that we will be able to accept the facts that define us, and in doing so, we reimagine what we can become and remember who we are as human beings. This book is but a rock skipped upon the pond of life, purposed to create a ripple.

Until the thought process of every human being begins with the identification that we are all human beings first and second, we are affiliated with our tribe or ethnic heritages, there will always be oppression and inequities among us.

Introduction

Thank you for accepting this invitation to read this book. As such, I want to encourage the idea of being open-minded in your journey-read. The idea of open-mindedness revolves around taking a learning stance and preferably a public learning stance that says that I am willing to be transparent to myself and toward others of what I may know or not know. I am willing to learn and share with others, with the understanding that doing so creates a vulnerable space for me and those engaged with me.

If by chance or purpose during the journey of this reading you experience a keen sense of familiarity with the content herein, perhaps your time spent with me was to confirm what you already know and believe. I would imagine that would be refreshing. More often than not, I suspect that there will be ideas that will challenge your beliefs or your value systems or your perspective and, in doing so, will resonate at the high end of the spectrum of your being that already knows what is true and just. I encourage you to lean into whatever discomfort may come.

While there are obviously and most certainly several lenses through which to read this book, one lens or protocol that I recommend is the Four As protocol, which are agree, aspire, assume, and argue. The Four As protocol is an interactive approach that was created as an educational reform initiative in terms of how to review a text. All good readers engage the text by annotating what they read. They may take notes or highlight resonating ideas. Readers underline words or create personalized mechanisms to remember or record or to enable them to have discussions about what they are reading. Think book clubs!

With regard to the Four As, you are interacting with me, the author. Through this lens, it is my hope that you will agree with some thoughts in the book, as well as ideas to which you will aspire. You may find yourself thinking that I assume positions, and finally you may want to argue with me! I love to engage with readers, but you could participate in the Four As protocol with anyone around this book or any other book.

In reading this book, the idea of being open-minded means that you are compelled to take a learning stance. Taking a learning stance is probably the most challenging and the most difficult because people typically have a fear of having their beliefs challenged. Fear of the unknown is the most likely culprit. Add to that your paradigm of reality and the fact that most likely it will shift or at the very least be threatened. Someone with less than a strong constitution may give in to the fear of learning because it is uncomfortable.

The alternative could be interesting and exciting. Taking a learning stance is the adventure that lies in pursuit of the unknown. This is where change begins or is initiated. It is an entry point to being a change agent. You may want to keep this to yourself initially as you are processing the idea of what this change may look like and until you are prepared to actually take action or to make an effort to do something to change; the origins of which are from a place of love.

Existentialism

I've often heard this word used in a lot of different discussions throughout my lifetime, probably dating back to college, and I never really knew what it meant. Of course, I have looked it up in the dictionary several times, but the question or idea was within what context does existentialism exist or how it is used. As I began writing this book around the idea of philanthropy, I thought that existentialism is aligned to the idea of creating a philanthropic mindset and movement. I Googled the definition of existentialism, and this is the working definition: a way of thinking that focuses on what it means for people to exist—it is a philosophical movement—the premise that people must make choices about their life while knowing they are mortal is what existentialism is all about. It was created by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855).

The phrase that resonates with me is people make choices about their life while knowing they are mortal. This phrase harkens to the age-old question of what would you do or how would you live your life if you knew that you were going to die tomorrow. Sometimes I think it escapes us that we were not meant to stay here on earth and that eventually we all shall go another way and leave the planet. Knowing that you are mortal, how will you live your life?

As I ponder the meaning of existentialism and its connection to a philanthropic mindset, I am moved to think that it is a philosophy or a way of life or a way of thinking that must be addressed or considered as you read this book. We all make choices in our lives, and within what context do we make these choices? Existentialism compels us to look at our lives through the lens of being mortals in that one day we will die and leave this earth.

Within this context, a pressing question becomes since one day I will leave this planet, what do I believe happens after I leave the planet—the idea of heaven or hell or life after this life and what matters after I die, and does anything matter after I die? How would I be remembered if I am remembered at all? The answers to those questions give us a reason and purpose or intention with regard to how we live. Or in the absence of all of the above, maybe we live reckless, unintentional lives because what does anything really mean? At the end of the day, examining your life choices from the perspective that one day it ends can be incentive enough to change how you live and how you/we treat one another as human beings.

An existential worldview is an entry point to begin to change our behaviors because it allows us to be introspective. We all have made decisions that upon reflection, we probably would have made different decisions. This does not necessarily make us bad people. It just makes us people who made bad decisions. However, upon reflecting on our bad decisions, if we knowingly and willingly continue to make these bad decisions, then we become those decisions.

Let's face it, most of us are who we are to a large extent due to the adults in our lives who taught us their ways of life: their rituals, their norms, their culture, and their expectations. Included in all of this, especially in America, have been racism, sexism, ageism, and a host of other isms. Ultimately, it boils down to the haves and the have-nots; and the haves get to decide who is worthy of having certain resources, how much, and how we share our resources. They get to define the idea of human being.

This is the premise of white supremacy in America.

How have we come to a place where all human beings are not treated equally and there is an idea that certain human beings are subhuman? Why do we rationalize behaviors to legitimize the oppression of other human beings? The challenge is how do we undo the conditioning and the programming that has been instilled in all of us since birth and is consistently reinforced by media and propaganda oftentimes by the very people whom we respect and/or grew up loving and looking up to as role models? I am sure that many of these people at some point have disappointed you or broken your heart or revealed that though they might not necessarily be bad people, they have made self-serving choices in their own best interest, which begs the question—are they aware of their own mortality, or do they care?

They are human beings as we all are, and yet instinctively, there is something inside all of us that these adults we looked up to and admired are engaging in actions that we know are not in the best interest of humanity. Yet we do not hold them accountable because we are fearful and, dare I say, respectful? Where has righteous indignation gone?

As we grow into adulthood, there comes a time when we need to take responsibility for our own actions, and it is no longer an excuse to say, Well, that's how my mama raised me or That's how my people are, and that is why I am. You have to be able to fight through that and rage against that in order to grow and evolve.

Existentialism is a gateway to begin to undo that programming. As we take a deep dive into understanding a philanthropic mindset and the universal principle of philanthropy, I invite you to do so within the context of the idea of what is your purpose and what will be your legacy upon this earth and thereafter. For whether it is human nature or a nurtured idea, all of us want to be remembered or to have some sense of immortality. The irony of the conundrum is knowing that we live mortal lives and we want to be immortal. What remains is that the only way to become immortal is to live within the memory of those who come after us—our loved ones, our children, our grandchildren, and their children's children.

A Portal to Remember Who We Are

It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That is the day of infamy—when the World Trade Towers in New York City were attacked along with the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, due to a passenger revolt. Like you, I remember where I was that day.

I was working in midtown Manhattan at an investment banking firm. I was day-trading at the time, in search of a career. One of the brokers who was trading with other brokers who were located in the World Trade Center said that the first tower was hit. He communicated over the phone that the tower was hit, and brokers in my firm immediately exclaimed aloud, Stop bullshitting!

There were televisions hovering throughout the trading room streaming ticker tapes of stock trading. Immediately, the screens switched to live coverage of the towers. We actually saw the second plane hitting the second tower in real time, simultaneously, as the broker in the second tower was telling the broker in my firm, There's a plane that's going to hit my building!

He could actually see the plane, helpless to react. It happened in real time over the phone maybe a half a mile from my office located at East Fifty-third Street and Lexington Avenue. I remember everyone and everything went silent. The click-clacking of the keyboards stopped. The television was on, but I do not remember hearing sounds coming from it. I remember everyone appeared frozen in time like one of those movies where everything stops moving, everything stands still.

Just as quickly as time stopped for what could have been seconds or minutes because all track of time was lost, time immediately started again with everyone suddenly moving about, frantically, toward the elevators and stairwells to leave the building. I do not remember taking the elevator or the stairs down from the eighth floor of the building. I do remember getting on the F train headed to make a transfer to the G train on my way home in Brooklyn, New York.

The train did not make it to the next station. It abruptly halted in the tunnel between the station from where I left and the next station. In the darkness of the tunnel, the conductor announced that the next stop would be the last. The train would be going no farther. With all forms of public transportation and private transportation for that matter completely shut down, the island of Manhattan was closed off to all vehicle traffic. Pedestrian crossings were the only modes of leaving the island.

I decided to make my way downtown to cross into Brooklyn over the Williamsburg Bridge. As I was walking down Lexington Avenue, a flash of light on my left eye in the window of a television repair and sales store caught my attention. My stride came to stop, and I saw the attacks on the Pentagon in Washington, DC. My visceral reaction was that we are under the siege of war!

I quickened my pace downtown, and as I turned left on to Delancey Street, which leads to the walkway for the Williamsburg Bridge, I noticed a pay phone on the corner. What were the odds of finding a pay phone in 2001? Instinctively, I called my mother who lives in Albany, New York, which is about a three-hour drive north of the city.

She picked up the phone, and all I could say was Ma, have you seen the news? My call woke her up for the day because as a retired NYC teacher, she did not necessarily wake up every day at a particular time.

Her obvious response was that she had not seen the news, and she asked why I asked. At that moment, the Twin Towers were collapsing onto their own foundation.

Ma! I exclaimed. The Twin Towers just fell! With that said, I started crying like a baby.

Faced with that realization, I told my mom that I loved her. She asked what I was going to do now and where I was. I told her that I was on my way home and that I had to make my way on foot because there was no other way but to walk over the bridge.

I'll call you when I can, I ended.

I love you. Be safe, my son, she responded.

Regaining my bearings in terms of where I was now standing, I saw that I was just blocks away from the Williamsburg Bridge that connects the east side of Manhattan with the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. I started to slowly make my way down the block just putting one foot in front of the other with no particular sense of pace. Yet as I continued to walk, I realized that