Category: culture

kindness, in mini

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Let’s start small. Yesterday, I had difficulty reconciling the lifestyle of kindness and compassion with the need to punch a Nazi in the nose (because that may be the kindest thing you can do for the world, and perhaps for them).

Today, I’m just thinking about little things, and mostly, it comes down to paying attention. Instead of living in our own heads, we focus outward and really pay attention to the people around us, the people with whom we interact. How are they responding to what’s happening around them?

Do they need help? A good chuckle? A hug? A pat on the back? Some uplifting words?

Or maybe they just need someone to sit with them and be there for them.

I’m naturally drawn to the underdog, the person everyone’s ignoring in place of the most obvious victim or the cause du jour. Caregiver burnout is a real thing, and I think it behooves us to show some grace to those who do the work.

It’s very easy to feel empathy for an aging mother whose mind is wavering, or someone in a wheelchair, and very easy to criticize those who are most responsible for their welfare, who have set aside their own wants and needs in order to take care of someone else.

And it’s easy to sympathize with those who are caregivers, except when they get frustrated or dare to take a little something for themselves. Then, it’s easy to criticize; they’re bad people for getting angry at their charge, for taking a few moments to collect themselves while a child or parent is screaming; the accused, seeing the press whirl up against them without any regard for fact or nuance.

It’s easy to judge, to write off, to label as mean, as a bitch, an asshole, an abuser.

It’s much more difficult to try and understand, and in that, there is kindness.

I guess this wasn’t really mini at all.

More on that another time.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2094 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 38-39, Grifter v2 11, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 2
Music: Fat Music, Volume 5: Live Fat Die Young, Anti-Flag

kindness in the face of insanity

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I’ll admit, this is the part of kindness where I struggle. I know, in Buddhist thought, Taoist thought, compassion is for everyone, no matter who they are or what they represent.

And I understand that. But I see kindness as having little effect on the authoritarians of the world, or on those who absolutely refuse to help themselves. In many cases, kindness is an enabling factor, not a mitigating one.

Kindness needs to be tempered with a resolve that doesn’t allow for bad behaviour to continue. Tough love, I believe it’s called, but I hate the concept itself – it’s so ripe for exploitation and coercion. Like so many great concepts “in theory”, there are always those who would twist the sentiment to their own end.

Tough love as the excuse for an abusive parent. Kindness as a shield for an exploitive guru. Compassion as way to enable another’s bad behaviour and thereby, avoid conflict.

It is not kindness to let people continue to behave poorly in their lives. Sometimes, the greatest kindness is letting go of that person, or devising a means by which their harm can be minimized (or eliminated altogether – and since I preach non-violence as much as possible, I prefer minimization – not ignorance, awareness without engagement).

Sometimes, the most kind thing is to recognize that the person you need to be kind to is yourself, and that the person who you believed deserved your kindness is not of more consequence than that. If compassion for another is killing you, it flies in the face of compassion. Compassion does not equal martyr.

Then again, maybe I just don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Perhaps I’m only saying this because I feel on the verge of breaking, and am putting up walls to allow myself time to rebuild, refocus and rest.

Thus, it’s back to the Buddhist texts and a continued re-reading of Tao Te Ching. Kindness, empathy, compassion – the structure is in there somewhere.

And I’ll get it eventually.

I hope.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1369 words, novel: Father Lightning (and the tradition of missing my updated target on the first day continues)

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton (wait, is this a rewrite?  Ugh.)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 37-38, Grifter 9-10
Music: Fashion Nugget, Cake (wickedly underrated band)

the world must be terrifying

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I mean, it is, but if you went by all these 911/CSI/NCIS shows (the U.S. Navy must have the highest peacetime mortality rate of any branch of service in the world), or by the local news, you’d swear you were about to get ganked around every corner.

I think there’s a lot more kindness happening than that.

Although… why is this newslady smiling about the murder/suicide that resulted in an apartment building half-burning down?

This is a twisted planet.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1400 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: On Cats, Charles Bukowski (I'll admit, I teared up at the Manx)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 34-35, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 1, Grifter v2 8
Music: Far Side Of The World, Jimmy Buffett (and now you know why I'm chill today)

motherfu—

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So, listen. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist. I know everybody immediately assumed the White House Correspondent’s Dinner attempt was fake, and then immediately, in the interest of both sides-ing it or covering their ass from a litigious president, decided to pretend maybe it wasn’t.

I personally think we are right to be suspicious. Certainly, there’s arguments both ways. On one hand, President Rotting Orange has given the world more than enough reasons to hate him. Fuck all that shit about Democratic rhetoric turning the heat up – those folks are mostly cowardly, hedging their bets every chance they get. Donald, on the other hand, ratchets up to a hundred pounds of hateful rhetoric and bullshit every time he opens his mouth.

That said, maybe the hateful rhetoric spewing from his piehole (and his minions’ pieholes) is enough to spur someone to violence, in anger, in retribution, in a misguided attempt at justice (and justice does need to come, though preferably, not with bloodshed).

On the other hand, this administration and its orange cult leader have flooded the world with so many lies, so much bullshit, so much flagrant dishonesty, that you could hardly blame anyone for taking anything they say with a healthy dose of skepticism. We all immediately start asking, what are they really after? What are they really trying to do?

And that’s a hundred percent valid. You don’t fight fascism by letting it lie without examination.

Add to all this the fact that they are literally running the fascist playbook, as example after example after example of past authoritarian leaders will show you, and it’s pretty clear they’re looking for their Reichstag moment.

A moment, you’ll recall, was fake.

Butler was bullshit – a hundred percent staged no matter how you slice it. The coordination of MAGA influencer accounts and MAGA politicians who with fast came out with the same coordinated message of “build the ballroom!” within what? A hour, hour and a half of the assassination attempt?

Yeah, my credulity is strained, and it was essentially nonexistent before, again, because of the firehose of deceit that gushes out of every Republican and MAGA influencer’s mouth.

You are the boy who cried wolf, and despite the fact that no one believed you, you kept crying wolf over and over again. And unlike in the story, where eventually there was a wolf and no one believed him…

There’s still not a fucking wolf.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 987 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke (shades of 2001, this, before 2001 came to be)
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 4, Grifter 6, Zealot 3, Grifter/Badrock 2
Music: Faithless, Back To Mine

process vs 4.0s

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I was thinking about Tom Sterner’s note on the conundrum of actual learning versus the grades-based culture of modern education. How if a 2.0 and a 4.0 GPA go up against each other for the same job, the job will go to the 4.0 every time because the 4.0 represents to our product-based society the most potential.

On the other hand, if the 2.0 had focused on learning what they needed to learn, learning to live in the process, but not scoring well, they’d have nothing to show for the fact that they knew more and were better long term learners than the 4.0.

It’s presented as a paradox, but the more I think about it, it doesn’t matter. Maybe it matters to the hiring party, but functionally, having learned to live in the process, the 2.0 is better off in a thousand different ways, including self-sufficiency and quality of life and presence.

Are they really disadvantaged? They actually know how to do things. They know stuff. They are enjoying the process, and that always attracts attention.

I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s all that dire. That’s all I’m saying. Would that we could do away with the grade system in favour of, you know, actual learning, and I think we’d all be better off.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1287 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 2-3, Grifter 4-5
Music: Factory Showroom, They Might Be Giants

repetition

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I think it’s time I got more serious about writing and exploring kindness.

See, The Mungk took me to a dark place because I was thinking about trauma, abandonment and isolation the whole time. The Conflagration of Boor and Aghast made me angry, because tapping into the outrage machine and felt helplessness of modern politics can’t help but do so (also, didn’t help that Trump launched his reign of terror).

Father Lightning is, at its core, an exploration of kindness. So rather than bogging down in anger and hopelessness or despair, it was meant to re-centre me, and re-focus on compassion and empathy and treating people with kindness and respect.

But here I am, thinking about anger and trauma, again.

Going forward, no more pain and anger (well, some pain and anger).

The primary focus of this blog will be kindness, and everything that goes along with it.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2195 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Time For A Tiger, Anthony Burgess (when I started reading this, I thought it might be about an actual tiger, or a tiger as a metaphor for Malaysia near the end of British rule, but nope - a Tiger is a warm beer, and our protagonist spend most of their time not wanting to do anything but stop what they're doing and go have one.  Weird premise, Burgess.  I mean, I understand the sentiment, but weird thing to focus a book on.)
Comics: Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade 1, Zealot 1, WildC.A.T.S. 23, Team One/WildC.A.T.S. 2
Music: Facelift, Alice In Chains

midnight library

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My daughter is listening to this audiobook, and I can’t help but think it dovetails with my idea of an afterlife (of just spending all one’s time exploring all the possible scenarios and things one wanted to know in one’s life), only instead of curiosity and wanting to know what one’s missed, it’s a testament to human restlessness, of its ridiculous dissatisfaction with literally everything.

FOMO is destroying the world.

Of that, I have no doubt. Envy is a real bitch.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 506 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Time For A Tiger, Anthony Burgess
Comics: Team One/WildC.A.T.S. 1, Spartan: Warrior Spirit 1, WildC.A.T.S. 22, Grifter 3
Music: Face Dances, The Who

funny how that works

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You wake up, things seem like they’re going tickety-boo, and then all of a sudden, it’s three o’clock and you’ve only done distracted things and shit for other people.

And yet it seemed like you had so much time.

If that ain’t a metaphor for a wasted life, I don’t know what is.

This workin’s for the birds.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2028 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Time For A Tiger, Anthony Burgess
Comics: Wildstorm Rising 2, Grifter 2, WildCats Adventures 10, WildC.A.T.S. 21
Music: Fables Of The Reconstruction, R.E.M.

kindness starts at home?

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I mean, is it possible that the first step in kindness is not just being nice to the people who are close to you, but maybe, showing yourself the kind of kindness you’d like to impart onto others?

Forgiveness for past transgressions. Forgiveness for failures, for inaction, for embarrassing blunders.

Forgiveness for little things.

Big things.

Bad behaviour.

Forgiveness for being a dumbass.

Because there’s always that. In the grand scheme of things, we are all morons.

So, forgive yourself for that. We’re all the same in that regard.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 800 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Pebble In The Sky, Isaac Asimov
Comics: WildCats Adventures 7, WildC.A.T.S. Special 1, Warblade: Endangered Species 4, WildC.A.T.S. 20
Music: October 30, 1992, Buenos Aires, Nirvana

that was kind of rude

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Like, the whole thing about Father Lightning is me exploring the nature of kindness, in the same manner I explored the concept of dualism in The Conflagration Of Boor And Aghast and trauma in The Mungk.

I don’t think I’m doing so well. The point of kindness is not that you’re a doormat; it’s also not to only be kind to those to whom it’s easy to be kind.

True kindness understands that sometimes the kindest thing is a direct truth; true kindness understands that sometimes, even those that would seem to deserve it the least are the ones that may need it the most.

It sets boundaries by shedding light on the reality of a situation; it understands that sometimes, in that enlightening, we may need to cast aside judgment.

I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job of that.

In this, I must be better.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2337 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Pebble In The Sky, Isaac Asimov
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 18-19, WildCats Adventures 6, Warblade: Endangered Species 3
Music: February 19, 1992, Tokyo, Nirvana