On the Burden of Kindness

Bugs have never frightened me. Growing up in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, springtime heralded a constant ebb and flow of insects, from mayflies and mosquitoes to crickets and hissing locusts. During recess, rather than frolicking on the playground, I’d often walk the perimeter of the back field looking for new friends among the high grasses. In the heat of the summer, if I was lucky, I’d find a little hollowed out pod indicating the presence of a praying mantis hatch. If I was even luckier, I’d find a mantis.

In those early elementary years there was no greater joy than finding the bright green praying mantises. I’d hold them and watch them move, their little necks pivoting back and forth on their elegant, alien bodies. Once, my friend Paul came over to see what I was holding and the frightened mantis jumped at him. Paul shrieked and ran about, calling the creature disgusting and revolting. I was rather heartbroken. He could have killed it. That rare, fascinating creature.

Sure, I was not a typical kid. I get that. Whatever connection that exists in the majority of people out there to stay clear of crawling things doesn’t appear to have made its way to my brain. I’ve always loved animals, and in particular the kinds with the worst reputations and the ones misunderstood.

Nature and wildlife enchanted me from the moment I could reach out and touch it. Fishing trips with my dad exposed me to an aquatic world of water bugs, trout, vines, and algae living right at the edge of my neighborhood. My mother’s avid gardening meant I always had blossoms — and their pollinators — to observe. Many a summer afternoon I spent on the old concrete stairs in my back yard feeding sugar water to the ants and watching them march along together.

I don’t think I anthropomorphized the natural world, but I always felt like an observer, a friend, to it. I would try to talk psychically to animals and find “cures” in the underbrush. When my Girl Scout troop members killed fireflies and smeared their phosphorescent guts on their cheeks I watched in shock, holding back tears.

It wasn’t some moral high ground. Rather, I think it is a learned kindness that I have walked around with for a very long time. People often said I was an “old soul” and wise beyond my years. I preferred to speak with adults rather than children (really, I think I preferred animals and plants to either). I felt responsible for these creatures that no one saw, and felt it was my duty to push them out of the way.

From Insects to Kindness

Girls are not encouraged to chase bugs, but we are encouraged to be kind, I think, far more than men. I tweeted about this recently: women tend to carry the emotional burden of kindness where men do not. Part of this is a cultural reflection: kindness is antithetical to confrontation and war, the very sort of attributes suppressed by toxic masculinity. But kindness is necessary, even in this strange narrative we’ve created. Someone has to take up the mantle, to leave room for forgiveness, to argue the other side. And who better than women who are made to nurture?

Except I don’t think kindness has anything to do with nurturing. And I believe it’s a practice that should be engendered in everyone (I’d argue that kindness isn’t a virtue, it’s a kind of discipline to go against the lizard brain response to fight or flight when confronted with something unexpected). And not just kindness for people. I mean kindness to the world around us, all creatures and features therein.

The root of the word in English goes back to the Proto-Germanic, kundi, which means “natural” or “native.” This is also the same route we get the word “kin”. An earlier definition was “one’s inherent nature” or natural disposition, and I find that a rather apt explanation. Kindness means treating someone or something else like family, like your clan. As if they are not Other. In these times of skepticism and doom I like to think that, at our hearts, people are kind. That capacity for kindness is a great human gift. that through kindness we can get over our differences. But maybe that’s just the etymology speaking.

If kindness is a gift, though, it’s also a responsibility. Though we often see memes of animals caring for babies or other orphaned animals, kindness as a concept is not common in the natural world (or at least in ways that would make sense to human beings). Nature itself is brutal and dark, cast with chaos and the survival of the fittest as much as it is full of beauty and the Sublime. The human quotient doesn’t change this — in may just complicate it — but it, in many ways, highlights the fact that we ought to be stewards of kindness. We have the means and capacity to prevent suffering, to mitigate pain, to fight for those who cannot.

Kindness as Socially Appropriate Power

Yet, as is so abundantly clear with a quick glance around us, human issues override natural issues (even though we are, some might argue, a direct product of the natural world, we have just pushed it to unnatural bounds). We value those with grit, determination, and perseverance; we recognize wealth, stature, and power; we celebrate influence, persuasion, and reach. But we see kindness as weakness, as vulnerability.

It is, in some ways, the same contrast of Dorothy to the Wizard of Oz (who was, and I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded, a total farce):

“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?”

It was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big Head; so she took courage and answered:

“I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help.”

Dorothy is not really small and meek. She’s actually quite courageous, smart, and kind. It’s an example of a female character written to have traditionally female characteristics. Her kindness isn’t a drawback to her character, necessarily, but it is well within the function of the society of the time. Women with power and grit are usually reserved for villains (see: Mombi).

But Dorothy is also someone who has adopted this burden of kindness. She is the caretaker of the bedraggled group of men who lack significant components to their own happiness. She gets the resolve to stand up and admit she needs help from the wizard. And she’s the one that doesn’t give up her quest for home no matter how difficult things get. She could leave everyone behind and focus on her career, but she brings them along instead, giving away parts of her heart all along the way. A consummate friend.

Many women are taught to forgive as a default. We are constantly told to see the good in other people, to empathize with those suffering. We are encouraged to talk out our differences rather than resort to fisticuffs. Time and again we are told that we must make up for a lack of physicality by our own cleverness, resourcefulness, and kindness.

Kindness in Limited Quantities

But kindness can be exhausting. Especially on a societal level. In the wake of the #metoo movement I’ve seen it time and again. Known predators are invited into circles, women express that they are uncomfortable, and the resounding cry robs them of their power.

Not all men! Don’t you be unkind to the rest of us! How can we be “just friends”? I never meant anything by it! Does this mean we can never invite a man again? Feminazi!

The message: be kind to me! Assume good intent! How dare you stand up!

Kindness can be a burden. It is one of the reasons sexual assault goes unreported. How can a boyfriend commit rape? How can someone you love hurt you? We are told to be kind, we try to forgive. Years pass, we grow older, and we realize how toxic this kindness can be because it is at the expense of our own bodies and minds. “Give him a chance..” “It was one time.” “He’d had too much to drink.”

Kindness is a choice. But it is a limited resource, too, and it can be a habit (not always a good one). We talk about self-care in terms of relaxation and bath bombs and “saying no” to things, but it must be on a philosophical level to truly stick. It’s not just about escapism; it’s about changing the way we think and do things so we don’t burn out.

I am redirecting my kindness these days, trying to be a better steward of my limited resources. We have three bird feeders outside on our porch. I’m planting pollinator favorites in my garden. I’m spending a little extra time with my dogs. I’m taking more hikes and chronicling the growth of wildflowers. These aren’t large acts of kindness. They don’t deserve awards or recognition. But that’s never what kindness was about.

At the root, kindness is about giving without need for reciprocation. Being part of the family, having a shared genetic component. The more we learn about the vast world around us the more we see how we are all connected (except if you’re an octopus). Plants and animals are far better about taking kindness than people are, at least in terms of receiving without due. In reply to kindness, they grow and flourish. In this vast, unknowable universe I can reach down and scratch my dog’s ear, can hand her a treat, can praise her just because she exists. And she is made brighter.

I can catch the mantis someone went to squish and place her in a safe space. Her atoms arrange themselves in such a way that is a kind of natural joy. Kindness that gives way to the joy of continued existence. Even for just a moment more.

Perhaps that is the ultimate kindness. That which creates space for the ecstatic joy of being into the world. We can’t always expect the joy, but we can hope for it.