Has the ‘Milk of Human Kindness’ curdled?
I’ve been thinking about kindness. We all think we are nice people. Good people. But are we? Just because we are not bad or evil, does that automatically make us good? Just as doing an evil or bad thing requires action, doesn’t then being good also require an action? Just simply being is neither good nor bad. It is simply neutral. You don’t hear many people describe themselves as neutral, but most of us are, truthfully. We seem to run our lives in neutral. We shop, with no thought of what or where or who those items we buy came from and at what cost. We simply buy and consume. Even sharks are more selective. Even when a shark makes a mistake and bites a human, they realize that we are not their usual fare and swim away. Now, mind you, the bitten one usually bleeds to death, but that is beside the point.
We judge each other on superficial things like clothes, shoes and pay grade but the things we should really value seem to not be valued at all. I even noticed while in the chat room, talking to local singles that many people describe their height and weight, their “juicy booty” or their “big soft lips” and while those are all very nice…is that how we define ourselves?
Yesterday, I was shopping and a young man approached me in tears. He was quite distressed and said he had been kicked out. While many people steered clear, I talked to him. He was actually nicely dressed and fairly well-groomed and I could see that yes, he seemed to be recovering from what I call “a bender”.
Most likely he was addicted to something and had not paid his rent and was kicked out. The manager came out and was yelling at him to go and I asked him is there a shelter or something nearby I could take him to? But all he said is that he was a drug addict. If I helped him he would just do drugs. Then the police showed up and I prayed that he would get some help. He clearly was embarrassed to be crying in public and begging.
Though we can all say we would never, who is to say for sure? There’s an old saying; “there but for the grace of god go I”. Simply put, we are all here on earth together. ALL of us. A dog is a fish is a boy is a lamb. We are moving forward, as a species, as a planet. It is time to put thought into what we do. Get out of neutral. Do something good. BE something good. If we all think about what we do and who we are doing it to, imagine the changes we can make!
Human Kindness-it’s the only milk we need