The case for kindness in a self-centric world
The biggest struggle in my 20s has been grappling with the question: what do I want to do with my life?
It’s a question that’s constantly on my mind as I experiment, test, and reassess what suits me best. I’m sure many others struggle with the same as we transition from playing around in structured sandboxes (aka formal education) to being exposed to endless choices in “the real world”.
Typically, the range of considerations lie on a spectrum that starts with running a business at one end and taking a year off to pursue enlightenment at the other. Other options include getting a “normal” job at something I’m naturally inclined to, backpacking the world, and becoming a creator.
This week, when considering the question, something strange popped into my head:“I want to be kind.”
Kindness versus capitalism
Money is the lifeblood of the economy. What started as an efficient system for facilitating collaboration, is now sufficiently powerful as an end in itself to motivate almost any action (with a large enough sum).
The world tells us that in order to gain wealth, we must adopt a self-centric approach.
- Fact #1: If you constantly give away money, the amount of money you have cannot increase.
- Fact #2: Money makes more money. The more you give away, the less capital you can leverage to make more.
- Fact #3: Even philanthropists, under this system, have to adopt a self-centric approach in order to amass wealth which is then distributed.
- Fact #4: It’s easier to give when you have more. Most philanthropists become philanthropists after they get rich. Those who don’t have the luxury of having excess are forced to continually look out for themselves.
- Fact #5: The allure of greed enchants the best of us. Not everyone who gets rich ends up on the path of altruism.
- Fact #6: We all need to accumulate some money to survive. More if we want to “thrive”.
There’s a lot of nuance that I’m side-stepping here, but what I’m trying to get at is the mindset that the system encourages: under this system, values like kindness takes a backseat.
Rightly so, since money is given in exchange for value. While acts of kindness are regarded as such only when value given away freely with no expectation of return.
… or is it?
The intrinsic value of kindness
What most people miss is that at the individual level, kindness generates intangible value.
No, I’m not talking about karma. At least not in the regular sense. The secular conception of karma is the belief that by being kind, kindness will come back to you. This conception of karma is different from the original in buddhism and hinduism but it has somehow permeated throughout society.
It looks something like this:
The intrinsic value that I’m referring to is more straight-forward. When we act with selfless intention, we receive an immediate positive internal effect. When we do good, we feel good.
I think it looks more like this:
Some take this to be the perfect reason for why truly selfless acts don’t exist.“If you do good to feel good, you aren’t really being selfless.”
I think that creates a distracting premise for not being kind. I see this phenomenon of “instant karma” as nature’s reward system at work. It’s a natural win-win that should be enjoyed guilt-free.
At the societal level, kindness also has a natural recursive effect. After receiving kindness, we’re more likely to pass it on. This has sparked multiple “pass it on” movement like this. Acts of kindness start a chain of positivity that almost always results in a net-win both at the individual and societal level.
If you want the logical case for being kind, stop here. But if you’re ready to get a little weird, keep reading.
The-purely-for-fun-deep-section
Here’s some food for thought:
Why is the surface of our skin, where “I” stops, and “others” begin?
Yes, there’s a rich biological system that sustains a specific type of function contained within the boundaries of our skin. This specific function is what we consider “I”.
But this internal system is far from being isolated from everything that happens outside of the skin. Everything in our external environment deeply affects our internal system.
If that’s true then, isn’t the skin just an arbitrary line we draw between “I” and “others”?
In a way, the universe is one big giant system that sustains itself. If we saw the world in atoms, “I” would be indistinguishable from everything else in reality. The universe would look like an ocean with each atom mimicking a droplet of water randomly colliding with every other atom, creating waves — movement. If we zoom in a little more, everything in existence would be made of empty space.
So why is it that “I” live isolated within skin?
It’s undeniable that we’re all connected through a never-ending causal chain of actions and reactions (which then cause the next wave of actions).
Shifting where the “self” lies is a fun mental exercise to help think more fluidly about the concepts of selfishness, selflessness, and kindness.
What if this was also you?
Being kinder
Initially, this new strange thought about “being kind” sparked a few lines of thinking:
- How am I going to integrate “being kind” into my life?
- What % of my energy should I dedicate to this?
- Do I give up all purely self-centric pursuits?
But then I realised maybe a systematic & logical approach isn’t the right one. Trying to quantify, compare, and optimise for kindness feels incompatible with the spirit of kindness itself.
Instead of trying to quantitatively be kinder or systematically program kindness into our lives, maybe we should just act on the opportunities to be kind when they arise.
Maybe it’s enough to simply choose to be kinder.
Afterword
Something I haven’t mentioned is — why be kind in the first place?
I don’t think there’s much to it really. It’s simply something intrinsic to us as human beings. It probably comes from the same place as having an in-built moral compass. It’s like trying to answer why we like pleasure and dislike pain — it just is that way.
There are no right answers here, philosophers have been struggling with this question for ages.
Or maybe its us unconsciously identifying with the larger “self” and recognising that we’re all one big connected system.
For those that still feel quantitatively inclined, here are a few resources to check out:
