When I was walking in the park with the dog last week, the dog ran off to greet a person. This person was a hoodie wearing youth tapping away at his smartphone as he walked. When the dog approached, seemingly without thinking, he put out his hand to stroke the dog's head as he passed.
Seemingly without thinking.
I wonder how often our most generous impulses are those enacted without thinking. The smile in response to a smile. The arm extended to catch someone who trips. The British 'sorry!' when someone knocks into you and that shared amusement that the other person is the one who's actually sorry.
Those little shafts of light between judgmentalism and criticism.
There's a guy I know who seldom has nice things to say about others. He always starts with something like, 'I'm the last person to bitch but...' And often he'll add various qualifications like, 'I'm not saying he's...' when it seems that that is precisely what he is saying. It's this web of condemnation bound up to look like a rare exception to usual benevolence. But perhaps he's only benevolent when he's not thinking.
Others seem to relish condemning people with extreme contempt and distaste. They seem incapable of considering the world from another's standpoint and incapable of empathy for those who err... I mean that all acts of another's thoughtlessness or frustration deserve nothing other than scorn, there's no sense of recognition that other people have their own troubles and stresses and difficulties. They seem to impute to others base motives or a conscious lack of consideration but would regard such a harsh judgment on themselves as malign.
Others, you hear in their voice as they say something like 'poor thing', the absence of concern for those outside their immediate sphere. Like in the series Sharp Objects when the character played by Amy Adams says that in Wind Gap 'bless your heart' means 'fuck you!'
What I'm getting at is that inside, I do believe, there is a well-meaningness, but we somehow disempower it through our need to be the best or to be the 'real victim'. It's like, I've said this before, it's like compassion is a limited resource and we only have enough for ourselves and our loved ones. But when we forget all the layers of self-protection and attack as the best form of defence, then we reach out a hand to touch, to save, to bless.
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