147-08-07-2010

“Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t enough Rocks!”

                                                                Forest Gump: the Movie

Human Kindness Sometimes Means Being The Rock

Human Greatness Sometimes Means Being The Rock

By W. Owen Thornton B.A.

A farmer is plowing her field.  Hectares of ground are turned over in the vital task of preparing the earth for seed.  But while plowing is a vital task, it is a boring laborious process … once you’re good at it … and plowing does take considerable skill … but once you’re good at it the miles go by like the senseless amount of time spent sitting in a traffic jam.  It’s boring for most … a necessary task where the result is important but the hours spent in the cab of the tractor are taken for granted: they pass by meaninglessly.  Until the farmer’s plow overturns a rock.  Then everything stops.  Every farmer worth his or her salt stops and has to deal with that rock.  Human kindness demands us to be that rock.  Not always … only sometimes for in all things there is a balance.  Human kindness does ask us to be the earth in many aspects of our lives.  For without earth, there is no place for seeds.  And with too many rocks, seeds cannot grow.  But still, some times we must stop the tractor from plowing … we must be vital, important individuals, and we must dare to be rocks in the middle of the pristine field.  And while being a rock in a field is vital to human kindness … it is very difficult to be a rock.

In the late 1960s I remember farmers still plowed fields while they simultaneously did some serious rock-picking.  Rock picking means literally that: as the field was turned over, fist and head-sized rocks would become exposed and someone would have to pick them up and carry them over to the side of the field.  Once there, the farmer would return later with a wagon and they’d take those rocks to some other part of their property where they might be used as fill for a lane or some other practical use.  But the main point of the operation was that with the rocks gone, it was easier on equipment, and it was easier to plant.  It is the image of a lone rock in the field that makes me think of human kindness.  Think upon that image.  Or, if that doesn’t work because it’s an unfamiliar image to you, then think of yourself canoeing down a stream and you see a rock ahead.  Either way, rocks in the fields and streams of life are all about human kindness.  Here’s my analogy of the rock in the field and how it relates to life and human kindness.

The Rock of Human Kindness

Human kindness and human greatness is about being different.  When it comes to human kindness being a rock is important in the following way.  Life has a taken-for-granted flow to it.  There are many reasons why we are not rocks of human kindness in small situations.  First, we do need to give this situation perspective.  We all take life for granted and miss opportunities to practice human kindness.  1. We let our lives drive us and this means we forget to do the right things: even the little things.  2. We are driven to do tasks within a time frame and when we’re in this mode, we won’t stop to do things that we believe are morally important.  I’ve written about examples like these oodles of times before.  So, people forget to open doors for others and to stop and help others pick up dropped piles of papers or books.  We do this even when we know that good actions beget good actions and that were we to help others, others would begin to help us.  (And this would make our entire world a friendlier place … a place full of human kindness.)  Our problem?  3.  We’re focused on our own tasks to the degree that we do not see areas in life where we could practice little acts of human kindness.  And these are just the little things.  When it comes to big acts of human kindness, we do these even less often.  Say we see a neighbour’s adult child struggling in the work world and we fail to think upon it even for a moment … where if we did we could make a couple of phone calls in order to help that individual out:  IE we might call a couple of people we know who might interview that person for the “right” job.  What’s worse, often that adult child is struggling to make good and we don’t see that they’re struggling.  Florence Nightingale was appalled when she realized that we fail to observe that we don’t observe.

Being a rock of human kindness is difficult because folk like this stand out.  They might be considered softies or soft touches.  No one likes to be taken advantage of because “everyone” knows you are the individual who will help others, but I think you’ll agree with me when I say, “Better to be a softy and do too much for others than be indifferent and demonstrate a distinct inability to care about anyone, anywhere at any time.”  Being a human kindness rock is difficult because being seen as different in human society means we might not fit in.  I think it is tremendously ironic that humans by nature are miracles of uniqueness that cannot live their lives without seemingly sacrificing some part of their uniqueness because they are so concerned about fitting into societal groups.  We sacrifice that about us which is most wonderful, in order to live in a social group: That which we need to survive: society – rounds off our unique individual edges … the parts of us that are different but vitally important, until we come to “not realize” that we’re like everyone else.  In the human kindness “business” being like everyone else and missing opportunities to be kind in small or big ways means human kindness itself is sacrificed.  But to be the rock of human kindness in a field of common dirt is difficult because we will stand out from our society in negative ways that we “think” are important: those of being the soft touch, or fitting in with everyone else etc. 

The Rock of Human Greatness

First, let me be clear.  The Rock of Human Greatness is directly related to being a Rock of Human Kindness.  To do things that are vital for yourself … things that others cannot comprehend why they are vital to you when they don’t seem to make sense … is about practicing human kindness towards your “self”.  I recently asked someone who has taken a host of spirituality courses why they were doing so because, on the surface, they didn’t seem that … well … spiritual.  She said it was because there was a voice inside her head telling her to do this.  It didn’t make sense to her either, but she knew that when she didn’t listen to that voice, or when she deliberately tried to ignore it, that she wasn’t as happy … and so … she took the courses!  The voice is enough to allow this woman to do that which is right for her, in the face of any opposition.

When we fail to do that which is regularly on our minds, because it seems like it is a waste of time, or because others would consider it to be a waste of time, or because it doesn’t make sense according to our society etcetera, we fail ourselves.  And when we fail ourselves we fail the test of expressing human kindness towards our selves.  And if we cannot be kind to ourselves, it is less likely that we will do things or create a world for others where they can be kind to themselves.  And this weblog is about creating a kinder world … so we should be talking about being a Rock of Human Greatness.  What does that mean?

Say you have a dream … a strange dream … a different dream … a dream that sometimes you can’t even properly explain to the people around you.  It can be about learning to dance, painting, singing, taking spirituality courses, writing novels, or it can be about bringing the world a better computer or a safer, greener car (it can even be about having a human kindness weblog) … but at this stage of your life, that dream feels out of reach.  In the image I want to paint for you now, think that each of us is a clump of dirt in a field.  Dreams are like rocks.  When we are part of society doing everything it expects of us, we are like dirt.  We don’t make waves.  We don’t make trouble.  Life can be very good here: especially when you don’t have a dream of your own.  The world can be a beautiful place.  It’s just that with a dream, it can be made beautifuller!  It’s not possible to do really big things when you’re a clump of dirt. 

When we acquire a dream, however it might hit us: dreams threaten to turn us into rocks.  Rocks are things that society notices.  Rock people become noticed just as the farmer stops the tractor and gets off to pick up the rock before continuing on plowing many more hectares of dirt.   Ironically we are all mostly dirt most of the time because that’s the sacrifice we make to be a part of society, but we all dream of being a rock.  We all want to make it big and to be different.  Big dreams turn dirt-people into rock-people.  But being a rock-person of human greatness is difficult.

First there needs to be a warning here.  We all think being a rock person is easier than it appears.  The average millionaire goes broke three times before making that first million.  Anyone afraid of abject poverty and the humiliation of declaring bankruptcy will quickly give up the notion of wanting to pay the price of becoming a millionaire.  And that’s just one example.  I wonder how much difficulty someone like Bill Gates went through to become a computer pioneer and mega-billionaire.  I know from reading about his start in life that there were many, many 24 hour days working on computer cards (yes, programming was once done on computer cards with holes punched in them).  If you don’t want to work that hard at your dream, you’d better not be the rock.  And I can speculate that Mr. Gate’s early life was met with much derision from people who could not envision what he was attempting to accomplish.  Today Mr. Gate’s life looks envious and glamorous, but I’m betting that there were many parts of those early days when he wanted to give up being a rock in the dirt (someone people noticed in perhaps some not-so-nice ways) … days when the burden of the rock of potential human greatness was too heavy … too much of a price to pay for what he was attempting to do.

Dirt-people point fingers at rock people and tell them they are different.  That they don’t fit in.  Big dreams are things that can be laughed at.  Sometimes, rock-people fail to pursue their dreams simply because they don’t want to be as different as they need to be in order to succeed … because they don’t want to be laughed at.  Because we are a social people our need for being social and in community either allows the dirt-people to limit the rock people (so that they give up their rock-dreams and return to being regular dirt) or the rock-people give up their dreams in order that they continue to fit in.  Let me say something about this.

Both the dirt-people who fail to support rock-people – or conversely, the dirt-people who inhibit the rock people from living out their dreams – and the rock-people who give up when facing opposition are in error.  They are in error because human’s fail to accept change.  Being like others is about being like the dirt.  But if every dirt-person who unintentionally succeeded in destroying a rock-person’s dream had triumphed we wouldn’t have inventions like cars or computers or nuclear power or air conditioning.  We’d still be cave people.  I’m sure many successful actors and actresses were tempted to cease being waiters and waitresses and to return home to wherever they came from rather than sticking things out long enough as a restaurant server and going to that last audition that gave them their break-out role.  And had they given up the rest of us would have lost hours of wondrous entertainment.  I mean seriously.  Can you imagine the life of that waitress before the big break?  People would be saying things like, “Why do you bother.  You know you’ll never become Angelina Jolie!  Why put yourself through the hurtful rejections of endless auditions?”  The thing is I’m betting someone said something like that to Ms. Jolie!  But she remained a rock and … look where she is today!

Think of the big things that you like about in this world and imagine what the world would be like without those things.  Do you like green(er) cars?  Can you imagine life without computers and cell phones and i-pods and the dozens of other electronic gadget innovations?  Imagine a world without the wonderful story of Harry Potter given to us by a single mom who, before she sold the first novel was struggling to make ends meet.  I’m betting that she had to be a rock for quite some time before the residuals started coming in so that she could become richer than the Queen of England!

Being a rock of Human Greatness is difficult but necessary.  Hold on to your dreams.  Human kindness fails when dirt-people make trouble for rock-people.  Whenever a dirt-person succeeds in dragging a rock-person back from their crazy dreams, or whenever a rock-person gives up on their dreams because it’s just too much of an uphill climb to make their dream happen … well that’s when our world is made a little worse off.

We need to both be the rock in certain times, and to be the supportive dirt, so that rock people can have a slightly easier time of things before their dream is achieved.  When big things succeed, it is to the benefit of all of us.  We, human society, can make those dreams easier to achieve simply by being encouraging … by opening doors and picking up papers and making that unnecessary but helpful phone call for that young person who needs a better job.  If we do these human kindness things for others, then others are more willing to do necessary things that make our own lives just a little bit better ... and thereby making ours better in the process.

So be the rock of human kindness.  Being the rock of human kindness helps others to become rocks of human greatness.  Examples beget followers of that example.  We all want a better, greener world … a healthier place to live that doesn’t have air quality reports because bad air quality never happens anymore.  We all want meaningful entertainment in our books and our movies and our music, so that when we’re in aspiring rock mode we have examples of things that inspire us to further greatness.  We want more rocks to succeed so that dirt-mode is elevated and made better … a little bit every day.  It is as though each generation of humanity grows a slightly better, overall crop of goodness for those who follow because we supported the rock people of our own generation.

So be the rock.  Do that thing you need to do to fulfill your dreams.  It will make you feel better, it will make you want to be kinder to others (because you’ve been kind to yourself first) and it will make the entire world a better place.

So regardless of how difficult it is to be a rock … in some aspect of your life, BE IT!  DO IT!  Be the Rock in the field.  No one notices the field of life until something extraordinary points it out to us … and that extraordinary thing is just one of us … just one other clump of dirt who has dared to be the rock.  A better world starts with human kindness.

What can you do for your “self” to make you and the world better today?  You’ll know how big of a dream you have by what you’re willing to do to avoid doing it!  J

Cheers and God Bless

Owen