Today is Kindness, the final principle of the Community Trinity. My intent with assigning these principles to these days of this holiday was inspired by the Days Of Awe holiday, where adherents are asked to do some soul searching and contemplate the deeper meanings of the ideas the holiday embodies, not just sign up for some ritual or assent to some dogma. I wanted Holly Days’ ideas, being intended to foster a general renewal, to be less circumscribed and more philosophically comprehensive than Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. I believe in this judaic idea of an active ethos, where we use tools and concepts to derive right action, moment to moment, situation to situation; where we are tasked with a moral responsibility rather than moral obedience. Kindness may be the easiest ask Holly Days makes of us.
I’m not sure why I feel this way about the ease of kindness. All of us certainly are unkind from time to time, but I can’t think of anyone who disputes it value. Deterrents only seem to override it with self interest, or a tough-love sort of longer-term goal of well being. As far as I can tell, we all seem to agree that we should be kind, if we can, that we would prefer to be treated with kindness, and that kindness enriches the world. Kindness as an active positive act usually flows from a place of compassion or generosity. We see someone suffering and find ourselves in a place to help, or sometimes may just want to share our joy or bounty.
So, in this tradition of introspection I wish to inspire, these little-read posts serve mostly as my own personal practice, done in public. I want to explore unkindness, which is a bit different, often an act of hostility or retribution. I may strive to offer more kindnesses, but feel even more motivated to avoid the shame and guilt over unkindnesses I have committed.
The last time I hurt someone’s feelings, at least when I knew I had, it was mostly from being self absorbed and inconsiderate — captured by an idea and its arguments, unthinking of the person in front of me. Probably aspie thing as I know when folks cue me to let me know something I am saying or doing is hurting them, I back off and feel remorseful. But I also recall a recent, harsh dismissive comment I made in an online meeting. I made it to an unknown voice, someone I did not think I knew, but who had made a remark claiming 100% surety, that I knew was untrue, and I barked back at them something like, “there goes your 100%!” I had been unkind but didn’t really notice, feeling more like I had climbed a rung in the hierarchy due to my winning the point. It was not until later when I realized that the person who had made the remark was probably a cherished friend that I felt the sting of self-reproach for my unkindness.
It makes me sad that I could so easily violate a value I cherish and often espouse. It was not so much being inconsiderate as aggressive toward someone who was still the other, so that only once the reality of our kinship struck me, did my amoral act suddenly become a painful transgression.
This reflection like a backtracks to the previous two principles of community, Unity and Compassion, which together serve to gather others into our own tribe. I suspect our innate social instincts for fairness and kindness may only arise instinctively toward our ingroup. I wonder if we can endlessly expand that circle to include more and more and finally all our fellow beings? I wonder what rituals of inclusion we might practice and extent to widen that circle of belonging? I don’t like shaking hands or giving hugs and am often really uncomfortable with the ‘let’s all join hands’ ritual that often begins gatherings. Maybe if we had ‘gone around the circle’ at the beginning of that call I would have gathered them all into my ingroup and would have never thrown that shade so easily. In the name of Kindness think I’m going to fight back my fragility and or snobbishness, surrender to the circle, and raise my voice in Kumbaya.
HOLLY DAYS 