The Kindness Question
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Last Thursday, two of the young stars of Dancesport came early to practice, and since I had my camera, I had the privilege of photographing them. I've seen them many times of course; they have terrific talent. But more than that, they are deeply good souls who look out, as partners, for one another.
When I mentioned to them both that I'd like to take their picture, the young girl responded with a warning: "We'll have a little argument first," she said, "about which dance we'd like to start with. And I'll say one thing and he'll say the other, and in the end, of course, he'll win." She laughed, he threw his arm around her, and so it was quite clear that there was no antipathy here, just friendship—just the way that things get started off between them, when they come to tango, waltz, or jive. Their kindness toward each other made me happier than I could say. It was part of the beauty that I snapped into my camera.
I was thinking about these two today as I read the New York Times Book Review commentary on a new Adam Phillips/Barbara Taylor book called "On Kindness." In his review, Peter Stevenson writes, quoting, in part, the authors:
The punch line of the book is that we are, each of us, battling back against our innate kindness, with which we are fairly bursting, at every turn. Why? Because “real kindness is an exchange with essentially unpredictable consequences. It is a risk precisely because it mingles our needs and desires with the needs and desires of others, in a way that so-called self-interest never can. . . . By involving us with strangers . . . as well as with intimates, it is potentially far more promiscuous than sexuality.” By walling ourselves off from our inner kindness, we end up skulking around, hoarding scraps from the lost magical kindness of childhood, terrified that our hatred is stronger than our love.
I've not read the 114 pages of this book, only the review, but I'm intrigued. Kindness as innate? I hope. Kindness as danger? I can attest. Kindness as essential? Oh yes, absolutely. Kindness as something that children teach us? All the time, and every day.
6 comments:
I am intrigued too - "lost magical kindness of childhood" - I guess we do lose some if not all of it. I love the picture of the two dancers.
There is research to show that altruism is innate and it occurs among other animals as well. The mystical Jewish tradition has it that the instinct to survive battles with the instinct for altruism but both are necessary.
Very intriguing and lots to think about. But friendly arguments, like that of the dancers, is part and parcel of a good relationship. I would hate it if my husband and I always agreed and always gave in to the other -- how could the relationship grow or move or change? But beneath it all, there must be kindness.
I love this picture. The beat before the beat begins. The red-headed boy, just peeking out....
It must be wonderful to meet so many talented dancers of all ages. Fabulous picture. They look so serious.
"We'll have a little argument first," she said, "about which dance we'd like to start with. And I'll say one thing and he'll say the other, and in the end, of course, he'll win."
That sounds exactly like what happens in my house! Lovely. The best kind of friendship.
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