SeaHeart

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—-God damn it, you've got to be kind."

~ from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

~*~

None of us are perfect. We're human, and one of the reasons (arguably) that we're here is to try and get shit right. We're not going to. Sometimes, we're going to mess up, and badly. But if we can, at the end of the day, look back on it and think: I'm really happy. Or, I'm sort of happy. But the day was good, and I'm full, and my bed is soft and warm, and I have people who care about me.

...Then I think we're good.

Compassion is one of those pervasive, elusive things. We think about it, and everyone likes it. It's an amorphous concept you can't pin down like those "Support Our Troops" ribbons. Of course people want to support our troops, because they're our brothers and sisters, but HOW we support them is entirely different dependent upon the person, the day, the area of the country. You want to support them by bringing them home. You want to support them by giving them more shotguns and targets. You want to support them by forgetting they exist. I sometimes think it's like that with compassion. The idea of it is very nice, but if you talk to any one given person, the definition is going to be different, and we all REALLY practice it don't we, and I-have-more-important-things-to-think-about-than-something-I-learned-on-Sesame-Street.

I don't like telling people what to do, and I never will, so this entry isn't about that. I'm laid back, easy going, and even tempered. I smile a lot, I give hugs, I'm probably going to be that mom someday who remembers all of the names of the children on the block and who has the special salve they need for that knee scrape. So, love is in my bones, it's who I am, and it's as essential to my life as breathing...to me, compassion is a very important aspect of that.

I can't tell you to be kind. I can't say we need more of it in the world. I can't say that cruelty is horrible, that being shallow is hurtful, that when you think snidely about someone else, it hurts them regardless of the fact if they know it or not. I can't tell you that basing your opinion on how someone dresses is juvenile, I can't tell you that if you judge someone on race, orientation, religion or if they like crackers or not is wrong. Because if I told you any of these things in such blatant terms, you would say: of course. Or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'd argue me tooth and nail that it's your right to believe what you want to believe, and that everyone who wears t-shirts is a fashion reject and I should mind my own damn business.

And really, maybe I should.

So I'm not going to tell you those things. I'm not going to tell you that I've watched women sob over the fact that someone they didn't even like told them they looked like a fashion reject. I'm not going to tell you that I have friends who honestly don't give a shit what you think, dress like they want to, and still (somewhere) get hurt when someone rolls their eyes at them. I'm not going to tell you that I've held a girl while she wept because someone spread a rumor that she'd curse them in school. I'm not going to tell you that for every word said out of anger, fear, shallowness, rage, prejudice and a thousand other painful nouns there is a hurt that might possibly heal. Or might not.

We're human. We wake up in the morning, and we go about our lives. And our lives matter. And our words matter. And our spirits matter. Because every good deed or smile or kind word does something better than the last. And every decision we make to find that compassion means something, even if you didn't realize it.

You heard this in preschool. In elementary school. They told you this in jobs, your mother hugged you and told you you were special, and that you could spread that. You wrote love letters to one another, and you kissed your friend on the cheek, and you didn't know it, but the world became a little brighter.

We're all connected. We're all part of something bigger, and you know that person you said you hate? She's as much a part of you as the air you breathe and the water we drink because some of your molecules will become some of her molecules, and we're all part of each other, anyway.

It's New Age, right? It's radical. You'll read this and roll your eyes and you'll think whatever you want to think about me. Maybe that'll hurt. But I'm used to being the different one, and I can take that.

But I know people who can't.

If you forget it, or if you want to forget it, or if you don't want to think about it, or if you think it's bullshit, I can't do anything about it. Anything I say will not affect how you live your life one day at a time. I'm not a saint. I mess up, too. But if we all reminded each other of good things sometimes...well. That'd be a fucking awesome world.

There are no rules I know of, either, Kurt. Save for that one. And I'll live it all the days of my life, and if I don't--well, I'll keep trying. That's the best part about humanity. There are no fail scores. There are no final exams. There's just the day to day continuity of life, all together, all here.

Maybe I'm crazy. That everyone deserves to be respected and loved. That everyone has a bit of good in them. That we have the possibility in us to not think shit about one another, to not be cruel to one another. To not cause pain. Maybe I AM crazy, and if I am...I'd rather be that than sane.

It's radical to not look at someone and immediately have an idea about them (or believe you've figured them out because they wear a lot of purple and have dreads). It's radical to listen to someone who you can't make head nor tails of. It's radical to hug a stranger. It's a revolution, if you ask me.

It's a god damn kindness revolution.

Sometimes I get angry. Sometimes I'm unkind. As much as I try to be, I'm human, and we're part of the Goddess, but we also have this incredibly awesome thing called Free Will, and we use it. (Oh gods, do we use it.) But I really do try. I try with all my heart. And sometimes I don't even think that's enough. Or close to enough. Or a drop of enough. (And that has to do with self compassion which is a nice, long entry for another day.)

So I remind you like I remind me. That there's a revolution in our bones, and we have a choice, every single second of our lives.

No one else makes that choice.

But us.