I'm haunted by the fact that kindness and cooperation aren't the status quo. I'm haunted by the fact that truth and reason don't invariably win against ignorance and irrationality. Although I understand the mechanisms and motivations underlying the way things are, my understanding stops short of why we haven't made things better. I know that there are people who agree with me on most of these things, and yet every day I feel like I'm a lone madman shouting at the sky.
Some people describe me as a nice guy as if it were some sort of anomaly or as if I've done something amazing just because I like to help in little ways. They see me go out of my way to hold a door or help a stranger pick up something they've dropped, and maybe these acts of kindness don't happen enough, but in truth they take almost no time, effort, or other expense to undertake. It's not as though I've rescued someone out of the way of a bus or donated my kidney to a dying stranger. I like to think I would rise to the occasion should such extreme measures be necessary, but until such situation arises as they are, I'm hesitant to say for sure.
It requires so little to help people in little ways, yet it benefits everyone involved--perhaps not a lot, but more than a little--and so I don't understand why being friendly and helpful aren't the default states for people. Yet I do understand that the problem is self-perpetuating--cruelty and conflict breeds mistrust and withdrawal from unnecessary interaction with strangers, leading only to more cruelty and conflict. As such, if we focus on the evil in the world and in others, we'll end up adding to it, but if we look for the good, we'll not only find it, but we'll spread more.
Moreover, because of the nature of the feedback involved, we can't expect things to sort themselves out. We have to continuously seek to be something better. It seems that a lot of people try to decide who deserves help or who deserves kindness, believing that they shouldn't have to be kind to someone acting cruel, but this just limits kindness to persist where it already exists. If it's spread, we have to take initiative, especially when so often I've found that kindness can diffuse cruelty better than conflict. And often even good people slip--after a long day of cumulative troubles, or stressed by responsibilities, we all are jerks occasionally. And, when we slip, we would want people to be sympathetic, offering us kindness, and so, too, is it important that we offer kindness to others even when they're acting like jerks.
Another problem is that many people confuse kindness for weakness, and they confuse strength for aggression. It should be obvious, though, that showing kindness to someone being cruel does not involve siding with them. I'm not expecting anyone to see cruelty and offer to help be cruel; I'm simply asking that we not be cruel to those who themselves are. Returning cruelty for cruelty just makes people defensive, polarizing those involved and strengthening resolve on both sides. However, kindness can often change minds.
I think, in the end, what terrifies me most, though, is that when it's so rare that someone's a good person in the little things, I don't know how we'll ever fix the bigger problems. Every day we plunge deeper into economic disparities, government corruption, environmental pillaging, and a society of blame that--in addition to keeping us from being more helpful--diffuses responsibility so that no one's at fault and nothing is getting done. Yet we can't even figure out how to do the little things. We can't manage to be kind indiscriminately, especially in the little things, so how are we to change the world where it needs it most? Because, certainly, it needs it.
