Cultivating Kindness in a Time of Transition

Courtesy, respect, graciousness are all survival food

Sawubona.

In 1980, the movie Mad Max hit the theaters with a terrible vision of the future: marauding groups of Hell’s Angels types determined to get gas, the new gold, any way they could. Rape, murder, theft.

There’s a telling moment in the film that speaks to us today.

The tattered and beaten-down leader of the ragtag resistance group, Pappagallo, was entreating Max to be reasonable, to join them. Max was mad with grief after losing a wife and child. Pappagallo said,

“We’ve all been through it in here.”

As now. In our different ways, all of us are “going through it” right now. All of us, and that’s the world over, are in some way in the middle of dealing with great losses. Some unimaginable. Others, by comparison, not that bad.

Um, please.

Who on earth has the right to determine what “not that bad” is?

Comparisons are odious. Barking at others that my losses are worse than yours, kindly. That’s also odious.

I struggle to find the value in making the argument that my woe is worse than your woe, when there are endless opportunities to redirect, refocus, learn to cope, learn to rise, and learn to be someone brand new where we most need each other.

However, you and I can only do that when we are ready, if we ever are, and not a second sooner or later.

This morning I made the tactical error of reading a piece by a woman whose writing I used to love, but lately she’s sounding very shrill and angry. She was calling out people who bragged on social media about what they were hoarding. How big they had scored.

I was reminded why I don’t follow her right now.

While I might even agree to a point, I am not sure how helpful it is to publicly shame people whose unfortunate stress response to our Conditions is to hoard. You and I might be just as terrified or more so. We may choose a different reaction.

Yesterday I scoured four local stores in search of toilet paper. I choose to make that funny. I choose to find the ridiculous in such situations. As a 67-year-old woman, I have the right to go to my local Safeway story at pre-designated early am hours three days a week.

Those days and hours fall precisely 24 hours AFTER paper supplies have arrived. When I get there with my aging neighbors, the cupboards are bare again. If I want paper products I have to stand in the big crowd that pushes through the front door at 7 am on all the other days. Oh, that’s safe at Safeway.

That’s. Just. Funny.

Look, you might not think so. In some ways it isn’t. But I choose to frame it with hilarity. Reading angry rails only boils my blood needlessly.

I have enough on my mind, including how to make my last toilet roll last a very long time. Not bad practice. I have a pair of scissors in the toilet. You learn to air dry. Get over it. Doesn’t work for everything, but hey.

Barking angrily at those people online not only doesn’t change their behavior (it usually gets worse in response) but it also causes others angst, anger and more fear. And causes them, in some cases, to run out and hoard themselves to protect against hoarders.

Not. Helpful.

One reason I moved much of my material to Illumination is the proliferation of positive voices. Articles that don’t brow beat, but teach, inspire, push, cajole, delight and challenge. That’s the oasis. There’s a good reason we’re growing. To my mind it’s a collective pulling ourselves and each other up by the bootstraps.

While I honor that particular writers’ right to her opinion, and I also don’t argue with some of her points, I have to ask myself how what I choose to write will help rather than hurt.

I still write for other pubs. I’m on Illumination for the primary reason that I choose to be shoulder to shoulder (okay, reader distancing involved) with people who are looking for solutions, supporting each other, uplifting each other and finding reasons to focus on the possible, all while being sober and mindful of our Conditions.

Those are powerful choices. We, all of us, reflect the quality of the five people with whom we spend the most time. I might posit that the same thing goes for the five people we read the most.

So Yah. There’s hoarding. Then there are my neighbors, who just bought three baby chicks. We called them ‘biddies,’ babies that Ralph and Judy gratefully cuddle in their warm hands and hold to their bellies while Shadow the Lab intently watches. It won’t be long before Shadow understands that the biddies (all named after Harry Potter characters) are best buds, not to be confused with snack food.

Those moments feed me. Give me smiles and hope and laughter.

We can choose to be affected or infected.

Let’s choose to be lights.

Shikoba.