Today is Kindness.
One of the great joys of Poppa life for me has been the survey of children’s literature Rey and I have embarked on via our amazing Pearl River Public Library. One of the books she particularly enjoyed this past week was Be Kind.
The great thing about it is that it actually questions a bit how to be kind, and even starts with a bit of misfire. It does proceed to the essence of the thing though, ending with the infectious universality of kindness.
The most moving and striking thing about Burning Man for me is the way it proves the power of kindness with its gift economy. Gifts, and not just gifts of stuff, though those are certainly in great and ample supply out there, but gifts of attention, and most centrally, of art, have a way or building a reservoir of generosity within their recipients. I suspect programmed into our cognition as social apes is the desire, even need, to reciprocate generosity. The ubiquitous free cup of coffee or bike repair seems to turn up the kindness knob in even the most cynical and selfish Burner. When shown kindness, we seem to not be able to help but want to show it ourselves in response.
Being kind can be such a small and easy act that one we can practice hundreds of times a day. Just the simple please or thank you, the offer of a smile or a sympathetic nod works wonders in forging bonds of gratitude between us. These are mostly reflexive habits, but going a little further, as the hero of Be Kind did, and pushing ourselves to find more and deeper ways to show kindness to our fellows, can indeed infect our whole community and travel around the world and back to us.
HOLLY DAYS 