We have a turntable in our house. A player of vinyl that we don’t use as much as we should. Because in this A,D,D, world we live in, it’s challenging to listen to an entire album when we’ve grown used to mixed playlists. A person pretty much has to be in a specific mood to listen to half an hour of the same artist, and that mood is rare for me. In fact I find the convenience of Bluetooth alluring enough that it’s challenging for me to make it through an entire playlist without fast forwarding just because I feel like it.
By the way, and in case anyone’s interested, Bluetooth was inspired by king Harald Gormsson who had a front tooth that was blue. I’m guessing that dentistry sucked in the 10th century and Harald didn’t choose to have a blue tooth, but he did and so that was his nickname. Harald Bluetooth or maybe his Viking friends called him Bluetooth Harald. Harald was famous for uniting all the warring factions of Denmark and Norway, and some guy from Intel knew that detail, and choose Bluetooth as a uniter of various devices. As opposed to uniting warring factions of guys named Ragnar and Bjorn.
So there’s a public service announcement for anyone wondering about the origins of Bluetooth.
I was talking about albums though. My wife likes Rod Stewart. I don’t like Rod Stewart but Rod was playing and I was close enough to hear the words to Georgie Boy. I was wondering if the Georgie whacking was a hate crime, but Rod seemed to specify that it was a mugging gone bad and didn’t have anything to do with the sexual preferences of George.
But another line from the song stuck in my head and I went off on a thought tangent that led to this blog post. Rod sings that Georgie was the kindest guy I ever met, and I started thinking about kindness.
I’ve concluded that being kind is hard work. Momentarily kind isn’t that difficult. Almost everyone has a moment or two of altruism, but the kindest guy I ever met implies a lifestyle bordering on perpetually kind, and I’m confident that those people are in short supply.
I think that perpetually kind is probably unattainable. Even Jesus threw a tantrum and wasn’t kind to the moneylenders. Also there was the time he was pissed because he was hungry and wanted some figs but the fig tree was barren. So he killed the tree. True story according to his book. But he didn’t chop it down or light it on fire. He’s Jesus afterall, so he killed it with a curse. Which is weird because the passage is from Mark 11: and God’s boy had already performed a few Mark miracles, so I don’t know why the tree was the subject of his wrath instead of a figgin miracle.
I guess he was just having a bad day, And if Jesus had a tapped out kindness spigot, then it seems unlikely that we mere mortals can ever be continuously charitable or compassionate. Sometimes we just feel like killing a tree.
Some people like to kill tree’s at a deforestation pace and some people like to plant tree’s. So, if I stay with the tree/kindness analogy then I think our survival is determined by a logging term we’ve adopted lately, and that term is sustainable forestry. We have to plant as many tree’s of kindness as tree’s of petulance that we cut down.
Or curse I guess.
I think this sustainability applies to both individuals and to people in general, and it’s in everyone’s best interest if we can maintain a balance. Although I’ve got to say that I don’t recall ever being exposed to too much kindness. Cruelty and dickish behavior in abundance, but I’m trying to think of a situation where I’d had enough of people being kind.
I can’t, and so I have to conclude that one of two things are going on with me. Either I don’t associate with those kinds of people, or they don’t exist. I prefer to think that they don’t exist, but I’ll allow that eventually I’d find overly nice people kind of boring. Everyone I know has an edge to them, and I guess that’s my preference, so maybe those kindly people are out there and I’ve found a way to avoid them.
However, I do choose to surround myself with people that I’ve determined are both reasonable and civil, but who can still laugh at a clever and somewhat nasty joke.
So assuming that we all have the ability to choose to be kind, then why aren’t we up to our armpits in kindness? I think it’s because we only have so much of that ability. Eventually the tank runs dry and we have a kill a tree day. We’re aware of our limited supply too, as evidenced by the fact that we make a conscious choice over who’s going to be on the receiving end of that limited kindness.
It reminds me of a Through the Looking Glass moment where the good looking queen told the off with her head queen that she was banished because good looking did not owe her a kindness. Regardless of the insightfulness of the idea that you need to love your enemies, we tend to do the opposite. A kindness owed implies that a kindness was received, and we’re not particularly good at handing out benevolence to those who have trespassed against us.
Choosing to be kind or unkind is I think only a relatively small portion of the average person’s life. Most of the time we choose indifference because there’s too many people that need help, and too many people that are easy to hate. Choosing to react to either group is fucking exhausting and very few people have time for that shit.
I will add though that the bulk of the few who make a decision to go all in one way or another tend to go with hatefulness. It’s easier and you can tweet or rant in a podcast and not have to actually do anything to home the homeless. But you still get to bitch and snarl about their tent cities.
I don’t think that we need to or should be kind all the time. If most everyone were continuously tolerant there would always be a percentage of people who would see that gentleness as a weakness. Those people would do everything in their power to exploit that perceived weakness, and those are the people that caused Jesus to throw his temple tantrum.
Even the son of God was tired of those pricks.
But I really believe that there are plenty of opportunities for people to choose to be kind. We don’t need to be saints but we can occasionally act somewhat saintly. I think that if we can choose to be a dick for no tangible reason, then it follows that we can choose to be kind for no palpable reason as well.
We don’t need to start a charity, but we can hold a door opened for an old lady and it won’t kill us is all I’m saying.
It’s our choice.