Thoughts of the day: Kindness

I’ve been talking a lot about kindness lately.  Like love, it still remains elusive to me and it feels weird to say all that because I am a very kind and caring person.  But what is its value to others?  I once read about the orphanages in East Europe where people fed babies but didn’t hold them.  Those babies died.  I’m currently fostering kittens who needed surgery when they went into my care.  But after spending six weeks with me, they are fat, happy, healthy kitties who no longer need to go under the knife.  What was the difference?  My guess is that kindness is something everything needs in order to survive.  It helps you see that you are part of  a unit, that someone wants to bond with you, that it matters whether or not a baby or a kitten will evolve to spend more days on this Earth.  

If popularity was based on kindness then I would be so popular! People would love me so much, but that doesn’t happen.  I find that people often try to take advantage of it, whether it be in me or in others.  Or that it’s not fun and exciting and therefore not interesting.  I met a woman recently who complained to me and another friend about a woman who saved her life — literally.  And now she’s tried to befriend this woman, whom, even though she’s “caring” isn’t “fun” and therefore she doesn’t want to be around her. I almost said that woman should’ve left the one complaining for dead if that’s all that matters.  

Kindness and caring is something that everyone needs, and because it’s a constant need, whereas excitement and fun can be fleeting preferences it’s often undervalued.  I couldn’t understand why, but I think I figured it out while talking to the lady who disliked the woman who saved her life.  I think there’s a profound difference between someone who likes receiving acts of kindness and someone who appreciates and values them.  Everyone I’ve met is in the former camp but I’ve met relatively few in the latter.  Acts of kindness come in many forms.  Whether it be in attention, love, material goods, food, company, care taking, compliments or sex.  There are forms of benevolence who doesn’t relish someone giving greatness?  The major difference is that liking an act of kindness just has to do with the person receiving them, thinking it is all about them and focusing on the act itself, rather than considering all that goes into the act for the person giving them.  Appreciating an act of kindness placing value on the act, considering it important because someone took the time out for the person receiving it.  And for that reason, it becomes important and they are thankful.

Here’s an example:  I was chatting to someone who asked me to do their hair.  Considering our history, I couldn’t do it.  He always struck me as someone who basks in attention from others, loves when someone does things for him, but it mainly matters that he’s getting his needs met, and less about the person who’s doing it.  So the people are interchangable in his life as long as he meets his needs.  It wouldn’t matter if I do it– it matters that he fulfills that desire.  It seems very self centered and I don’t want to take part in that.  It almost seems like it was the same for that woman who complained about the woman who nursed her to health.  And if someone is only concerned about their needs and not about mine, that’s someone I’m better off not doing anything specifically kind for.

I still hold open doors and carry people’s luggage when they’re struggling to get on the BART.  There’s a part of me that’ll always be that way. I find that it helps to connect with others authentically when I stay true to that core part of myself.  But perhaps I am becoming more targeted in whom I go out of my way for, exhibiting a behavior that does imply caring (like cooking for someone).  I’m fortunate to have friends whom feel that same way now.  I went to a vegan bake sale with Victor and Miranda and their friends and I was so relieved that there was no popularity contest.  It just mattered that we were all kind and respectful of one another and we all worked to create harmony within the group.

What about y’all, dear readers of this blog (if I have any)?  How do you feel about kindness?

Subtitles

I like to watch movies with subtitles.  This probably came about since I love foreign films, but I put the subtitle option on even when I’m watching films in English. Especially if they’re in English.  I find that having white or yellow letters at the bottom of the screen help me better concentrate on the movie and what is being said when I can read it at the same time.  Sometimes I wish I had this option in real life. Sometimes I wish I had subtitles for when I’m speaking to people.

I notice this often in English language films where the subtitle doesn’t quite match up to what the character said.  It’s just a word or two, and it still contains the same idea. Real life is like this often because I experience a disconnect between what is said, and what I hear.  Am I hearing what they are saying? Am they saying what I’m hearing or will my own interpretation come back to haunt me?

Early in the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton passionately converse about art and the beach, but the subtitles below show their thoughts are centered around sex.  He wants to sleep with her and he’s trying to devise the most witty, stimulating comments to give her the impression he’s one worth sleeping with.  Conversations take place like these every day.

Or maybe I’ll give a more current example.  Let’s say, me, goes to an event (like a party, an art murmur, a museum, etc) and I meet someone I like.  I tell person I like that I’d like to get together some time, and they say sure!  But of course this doesn’t happen.  Whenever I’ve said, “Can I see you again?”  there’s usually some child like voice on the inside saying, “I like you. Do you like me?  Am I worth some of your time?” And maybe person I like may think, “She seems desperate” or “I have enough friends” or “She seems cool and I’d like to spend time with her too.”  I say this because this response is standard in the Bay Area.  I meet people I like all the time but I can never tell if they like me too, or if they like me in the moment.  

Here’s where a subtitle option would be useful.  It’s not the same as reading someone’s mind (I don’t even like being in my head sometimes.  I don’t want to be in anyone else’s) but it would help to see if the person is being sincere. Or better yet, am I being sincere in what I’m saying.  I try to make my words match up with my intentions, but sometimes it doesn’t happen.  Okay, it rarely doesn’t happen.

The easiest way to become my friend or to get me to do something nice for you is to just tell me you like me.  I’ve given up on hearing someone say they love me for the moment.  A few years ago I met a nice older man at a dinner party who stopped me mid-sentence to tell me he liked me.  And I felt relieved.  That older man became my therapist when I was in school, and I’m sure it’s all because he told me he liked me that it allowed me to listen to him.  

Even now, though, I still stumble with saying I like someone, even if it’s true.  Mainly because it requires some sort of vulnerability and from my experience, it makes people nervous.  I told a guy I liked him one at a party and that started some weird discussion on how I was trying to push my expectations and decisions onto him and I wasn’t being fair.  That ended me liking him.  And the conversation.  But if I had the chance to read a subtitle where he might’ve said, “Don’t say you like me” I might not have said it.  And who knows, maybe we would’ve been friends, who don’t like each other.  

I bring this up because I could’ve used a subtitles option a few weeks ago.  At the Art Murmur I ran into this guy Evan who helped me with the purchase of my bike (finding an adult bike if you’re under 5′3″ is a challenge) and he made me laugh while he adjusted my seat. Miranda swore up and down that we were flirting, although I justified it in saying he was trying to make a sale. 

“But he was acting like that long after you wrote the check,” she said.

Good point.  Anyway, he was friendly, and I wanted to get to know him.  So when I saw him at the art murmur I found the perfect question for him — which was, which gears do I need to be in while going uphill.  He ended up coming back to my place for a glass of water and to see the fosters along with his best friend, and right before he left, he said he had fun with me. I did too.  I asked him if he’d like to hang out again, and right before we exchanged numbers he got all nervous.  Said he only calls 5 or 6 people on a regular basis.  I asked him why couldn’t be a part of this group for a week, just to see how things turn out, then he stumbled he couldn’t do it, he didn’t know if he was going to call me, and yammer yammer yawed, and I’m wondering, why the hell did this get so complicated.  All I wanted to do was hang out and have fun, and now, now we’re reduced to this:  sweaty palms and fumbling with cell phone and blushes on both sides.  Not the good kind either.

If there was a subtitle, in my mind, it would’ve read, “I’m not sure if I like you enough to spend two hours with you,” on his end.  Or perhaps, “You get the wrong idea and I don’t like you at all.  I was just showing good salesmanship.”  Whatever the case, I refused to hug him when he left.  Perhaps my subtitles was reading, “You don’t deserve it and you hurt my feelings. Kind of.”

Then again, it might have said more than that.

The Update of I’s

It’s been too long since I’ve updated this thing. Here are a few thoughts

 

1. I need to write as much as a run.
2. I like everything about my life right now, except my job.  I need a new one.
3. I’m glad I’m throwing potlucks
4. I went to the art murmur with my lovely vegan neighbor Miranda a few weeks ago, where she said she loved me.  She’s said it before, but this is the first time I believed her!  This is also the first time in five years I’ve had a positive exchange involving the words I love you.
5. I love kitten fostering.  Who wouldn’t love to have cute furry animals in their home only to return them when they start getting irritating?
6. I’m happy I have my bike.
7. I actually went vegan.
8. I am feeling a bit old now that 25 will be here in two short months and I’m having a quarter life crisis entitled, what am I doing with my life?
9. I miss being in a relationship. I don’t miss him.  But I would like to be with someone else in that way.
10. I am scared of the things that go on in my head.