Tag Archives: Self-exploration

Odd Moments of RAK

I know a woman and her husband who I am thinking of and sending wishes for a holiday of peace and hope.

There is an insightful and well-done YouTube video of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. He does a wonderful job of capturing elements of what I believe play a key role in being able to live a life that involves Random Acts of Kindness and sheds some light on my own RAK of today. It will be 9 minutes and 22 seconds of your life well invested. Trust me on this one.
This is Water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYJVV7HuZw

BUT, be sure to scurry right back to my blog. Such fun things to discuss today…..

This morning I went to the grocery store early. One of Haley’s sisters from her other family is visiting and I wanted to pick up a few things before they woke up so I could demonstrate what a good father and host I am. I was feeling rushed and jittery, and not adequately caffeinated for doing something as complicated as grocery shopping and being generally friendly to the other mammals I would undoubtedly encounter at the store.

The store was of course almost empty as it was stupid early, but because the store was almost empty there were only 2 check out lanes open. In front of me there was a young woman who appeared to have suffered a stroke with marked paralysis on her right side. She was struggling with the payment system, which is set up for right-handed people (one of those things that must affect Lefties everyday of which we Righties are blissfully unaware. Sorry, Haley!). The clerk was doing an admirably gentle job trying to help her, but as English was not her first language, the transaction was experiencing some bumps. Behind me was a couple who were bickering. Bickering, bickering, bickering in that special way that only married couples have mastered which has the calming effect to those in earshot of aluminum on the fillings in our teeth. They were bickering about whether they had sufficient security software on their home computer. She obviously did not care. He obviously did not know what he was talking about. Neither really seemed to have their heart in it, but apparently bickering in public was on the to-do list and they might as well get it out of the way (Bickering in Public: Check!). There was something about how the young man who was bagging groceries moved, interacted and looked that suggested there was a medical, possibly psychological, diagnosis in there, but what it might be was not readily apparent. For the record, in addition to being friendly and courteous, he was a monster grocery packing machine. To round out the cast of characters, there is me; under-coffee-ed, anxious to be the “good host/father” so doing that dance people do when they really need to pee but someone else is in the bathroom.

Here we are; Young Stroke Woman, Bickering Couple, Middle-Aged English-Not-Her-First Language Cashier, Monster Grocery Packing Kid, and Pee-Pee Dance me. Such a great star-studded cast to be really, really annoying and frustrating (Coffee, damn it! I need coffee and you people are preventing that from happening!). And then it struck me. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. Perhaps I had briefly acquired magically powers? Perhaps it is a nasty side effect of repeated random acts of kindness? But it struck me: This is a “moment.” For this short space of time, our motley crew was crammed together in this life boat that is Lane 6 at the front of an almost empty grocery store. What a weird group of Annoying Others who were complicating a task I was anxious to complete so I could be in a different moment than this one (I am sure they thought the same about me), who were also a group of fellow humans, bobbing along, maybe even floundering, in the currents of their streams. Somehow in my own bobbing and floundering, my rigid self-expectations of what it meant to be a good father and good host, my burning desire to be out of this store, my not wanting to leave the safety of my personal hamster ball and interact with these freaks, I was able to step back and recognize what a unique, odd and charming moment this was.

Here is what I did with this moment. Using all my inadequately caffeinated willpower, I tried to hold my inner pee-pee dance self as still as possible and pretend I was calm and in no hurry. I gave the young woman in front of me extra space so she would be less likely to feel rushed. Although inside I was quivering like a chihuahua who has stolen my much needed coffee, when she cast a worried eye in my direction, I smiled back and tried to look relaxed and calm. My turn to check out: I chatted with the cashier. When the manager had to join us because one of my items wouldn’t scan and she asked if I knew how much it cost, I suggested $10,000. We all had a nice laugh (I am hilarious!) and they seemed relieved (apparently some customers get really unpleasant when something doesn’t scan. Who knew?). We negotiated for the same amount as a similar item in my groceries. I genuinely thanked the Grocery Packing Guy for what truly was an impressive packing job. We wished each other happy holidays and the moment was gone.

The Bickering Couple? At some point they decided to jump lines. Unless you are someone who is blessed with good Line Karma, this is always a bad idea. The line they jumped to came to a screeching halt and they were still in line when I left. Suckers.

SO what is the point? (You: Since when do your blogs have a point? Me: Sigh.) I am not really sure what the point is (You: There’s the Erik we have come to know and love. Me: Sigh) but I know what it is not. It is not that this was somehow some sort of amazingly special RAK, not something I am expecting a prize for (Although, Santa, if the sleigh’s not completely packed yet…). I think the whole point is that it is not a dramatic moment, it is common everyday, often annoying, who-are-these-gross-people-blocking-me-from-getting-what-I-want-and-preventing-me-getting-out-of-here-so-I-can-just-get-on-with-my-day-and-try-to-take-care-of-all-the-shit-I-have-to-take-care-of-because-it-is-hard-to-be-me moment. White bread moments, easily ignored and so forgettable. Small, stupid moments constructed of annoying and petty frustrations. The moments we all encounter every damn day, and, if we can somehow catch the edge and pull back the wrapping paper a bit, it is an opportunity to be something different than trivial and touch the world with our open hand. This is water.

Maybe it matters. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I don’t know. I am just a gloriously complicated person filled with a ridiculous amount of contradictions scampering around my skull who is stumbling through a year of trying to do random acts of kindness. Oh, in case you are thinking I am some sort of amazing zen-like guy who is so centered, I got really pissed off at the idiots who were the other drivers I encountered driving home.

Holiday Drift

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Random Acts of Kindness: a one year challenge

I know a woman and her husband who have offered me a precious holiday gift.

My random act of kindness this last Friday was stopping to talk to a homeless man and giving him some money.

The balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I would watch that parade on TV and look at those massive balloons in wonder. Not so much at the characters captured by the balloons (although who could not feel the world was a better place when Snoopy, Underdog or Bullwinkle floated into sight?), but for how gracefully they floated along and how calm their handlers appeared, smiling and waving at the crowd as they walked in the parade, dozens of people holding individual ropes with ease, as a team tethering and grounding these huge beasts.

I was downtown Friday morning for a meeting with a friend as part of my ongoing quest for Global Public Health Domination. Holiday decorations were everywhere, mostly tasteful and festive, occasionally not so much. Yes, I know, judging.

It wasn’t super cold according to the temperature but the wind was intense as it plowed its way through the man-made canyons between the office buildings. It was the kind of wind that did a super good job of finding any crease or nook where you hadn’t quite adequately encased your skin, then snuggled down into it, like a kitten. Only in this case it was a freezing-ass kitten with sharp teeth. All in all, unpleasant.

As I navigated my way to the Metro, I saw a homeless man, fairly well bundled but not enough to protect against the vicious kitten that was the wind, curled against a museum stairway banister to get out of said kitten wind. The banister was ironically decorated for the holidays. Given that his task was to get money from people passing by, he repeatedly had to uncurl from his kitten wind protection to engage passersby. Friday was a sucky day to do that. In part this was because what little body heat he was retaining was lost when he uncurled, and because when passersby are all bundled with an intense focus on minimizing exposed flesh and moving quickly to the next warm place, it is easier to ignore homeless people. In all fairness, many people probably didn’t even see him as their kitten-wind protective clothing created tunnel vision. I probably would have missed him myself, but I didn’t. I wish I could say it was because I was on the prowl for RAK opportunities and keenly aware that the weather would be causing my fellow humans to be suffering (Go, Fierce RAK Warrior, go!). However, the truth is I was playing this silly game with myself where I was trying to listen really closely to the sound the wind made as it cruised the canyons, so I didn’t have a hat on……No, I have no explanation for that one.

Anyway, I did see him, and what was going on, and felt how cold it was (Stupid vicious kitten wind), and that the money-gathering cards were not stacked in his favor that day. So I stopped. We talked for a few moments, mostly about…..wait for it…..the weather. I gave him a little more money than I typically do if I choose to give in the vain hope it might help to make up for what was likely to be a low intake kind of day, we looked each other in the eye, smiled, said our goodbyes, and I stepped back into my nice safe warm stream.

Back to those holiday decorations…..which mean Holidays…..yeah…. I have been meaning to write about that. Why not now, you sarcastically ask? What a great idea, I sarcastically say. Where to begin? Back when I was a wee lad……that may be a bit too far back. Let’s just say that for most of my life I have loved Christmas. Not so much because of the presents (although, Santa, if you are reading, I am a big fan so don’t think I am unappreciative), rather because of all the accouterments: the tree, the lights, the ornaments, the way people decorate their houses, the “holiday classic” movies (especially love that “A Christmas Carol” and who can watch the end of “A Wonderful Life” without crying?), the music, the chance to sing with others, the pageantry, the ceremony. All of it. I embraced it with a child-like wonder and have clear memories of the sensation in my heart as I soaked it up (remember I am the sentimental, Norman Rockwell, Hallmark Greeting Card guy). And, Christmas is not even my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving is. Sharing food, being with people you care deeply about, let’s not forget the annual release of the Beaujolais, and, yes, I make people say one thing they are thankful for when at my house. It is also the holiday my daughter, Haley, and I spend together, and have done so across pretty much her entire life. Christmas is with her wonderful mother and her loving other family. Thanksgiving is ours.

You: Sounds lovely and hokey. Why are we talking about this?

This year I was in the Philippines for Thanksgiving. The work was important (Hippies! Global Public Health Domination!) and it was a rare opportunity. Last year, there was a wedding in Haley’s other family (I think that’s what it was) so of course I encouraged her to go. Christmas is her mother’s and I would never want Haley to miss the magic that is Christmas with her other family, so in my mind “swapping holidays” has never been an option to even consider.

What about that Christmas thing in my world? Yeah, I have been thinking about that quite a bit lately, especially in the context of not having celebrated TWO Thanksgivings in a row, and have come to a realization. Somewhere along the way, I have drifted from Christmas and I worry I am drifting from Thanksgiving.

I have had a pretty intense last few years with some pretty intense “challenges” in that time. I have had some wonderful times as well, including loving offers to share in other families’ holidays and amaze-balls holiday meals with a person who was pretty intensely special in my life, but I can see I have clearly drifted. There was an understandable, if pretty intense, triggering event related to a relationship ending that started my tumble off the Holiday Path and down the hill, but, somewhere in the midst of those multiple years of pretty intense, I didn’t try to stop myself from tumbling, didn’t try to get back on the Holiday Path. I have had many opportunities to re-engage with Christmas and its magic, but I didn’t. I have never been Bah Humbug! but I have been completely disengaged and apathetic. I didn’t have any negative feelings about Christmas, I didn’t have any feelings at all about Christmas. Fucks given: None. I became a Macy’s Parade balloon (I am thinking Bullwinkle) and for various reasons, one-by-one my handlers let go of the rope. Untethered and ungrounded, I have floated across the last few years of my life, watching Christmas (sometimes from quite close), marking its passage, but never engaged. I couldn’t engage because I was floating (which did not feel like too bad a thing to be doing), and because I was floating, I didn’t care about Christmas…..or New Year’s….or Valentine’s Day….or even Groundhog Day (Yes, not even Groundhog Day).

So who cares? Why does it matter? Except for maybe Groundhog Day, these are “just days.” But no, no they are not “just days.” They are days that have meaning, meaning that is derived from our connectedness to these other globs of flesh we call humans, the people in our lives, the people we have bravely mingled worlds with, even the people of our chance encounters (Good will toward Man and all that). So, fuck, it matters, it matters in all kinds of ways, but here is the one I think is most relevant to Random Acts of Kindness. Why did I drift from a holiday that has been so meaningful, if in the most goofy of ways, for almost my entire life? Why am I flirting dangerously with drifting from my favorite holiday, one that has bound my daughter and me in a fundamentally important way for almost her entire life? It is humbling and painful to admit, but I became afraid of fully caring about people, of being truly open and vulnerable with those I loved most. To my core I am generous, caring and “nice,” and have become afraid of the vulnerability that is needed to truly connect, truly love. Truth be told, I doubt I have ever been a rock star at the being-truly-open-and-vulnerable-with-those-I-love-most bit, and, untethered and ungrounded, I have drifted even further away.

Random acts of kindness. Fucking random acts of kindness. Turns out I can’t fucking do fucking random acts of kindness as I have defined the game without striving to be fully present with my fellow flesh puppets, and I can’t be fucking fully present while happily drifting untethered and ungrounded. So the last several months have involved (and I don’t think I gave informed consent about this), among many other discoveries, becoming increasingly tethered and grounded, increasingly present, increasingly vulnerable, increasingly accepting (maybe) of whatever floats into my stream or whenever I climb into an Other’s stream to explore.

So for the first time in 5? 6? years, I am stopping to notice the Holiday lights, appreciate the colors and decorations, listen to the music, and I may even sing. Perhaps oddly or perhaps not oddly, I find that I am experiencing sadness as that certain sense of wonder returns as I work to ground Bullwinkle, a sadness I believe I will have to more fully embrace to understand (sounds like fun, right?).

And I have an overwhelming appreciation for what turned out to be the Random Act of Kindness by a woman I know and her husband that started me on my own RAK path. Words cannot express my gratitude to them.

Gardens and Trash Cans

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Random Acts of Kindness: A one year challenge
I know a woman who, along with her husband, have given me the unique chance to step back and consider lessons to be learned from current & past events in my life.

I am going to start today’s blog with a sappy metaphor.
You: Nice to get this out of the way, as opposed to you ambushing us part way through as you typically do with the sappy and/or thinly structured. metaphors.
Me: 😛 This is the emoticon for me sticking my tongue out at you, in case that was not clear.
As I was saying before you rudely interrupted, I hope you will see beyond the surface of what I acknowledge is a trite metaphor and look for the potential value to the exploration on RAK that lies beneath the sentimental veneer. Remember, I am extremely sincere in my sentimentality so roll with me here.

Our histories plant the gardens we walk through in our day-to-day lives (You: Oh, for fuck sake! Are you kidding me? Me: Hear me out). What grows and what we must navigate everyday are from seeds planted by others, often long ago. The foundation of what has grown has little to do with us or our choices. There is a tiny percentage of us who get amazing, well-cared-for gardens filled with flowers and plants carefully nurtured (I vote we hate those people out of sheer jealousy). Some of us get poorly tended, or even abandoned, toxic gardens completely choked with overgrown weeds, weeds so high you cannot even see that there is a garden under all that tangle. the kind with big, sharp, nasty thorns or leaves that can burn your skin such that it blisters. Most of us fall somewhere along this continuum. At some point the garden becomes our responsibility, there is the potential to reduce the weeds, cut back the overgrowth of vines and poison ivy, plant things lush & beautiful, but that is dependent on our ability to become effective gardeners. Just because it is now ours does not mean we have a clue how to tend this garden anymore than those who planted it. Of course to add to the cruelty of this situation, the more toxic and weed-choked our garden, the less likely we are to be able to become the kind of gardener who can change the landscape in which we must exist.

You: Okayyyyyyyyy…….
Me: Now back to random acts of kindness.

Right before I left for the Philippines a couple weeks ago, it got quite nippy in DC as Winter did a test drive through the city, completed a few laps, then drove off again with a hearty “Woo hoo! I’ll be back soon.” It was nothing like our brethren across the northern tier states experienced but plenty cold enough to remind me that as much as I like wearing sweaters (and I really like wearing sweaters), I am not that big a fan of the freezing-ass weather that justifies sweater wearing. I guess we will see if I can man up or if we are in for a series of blog posts where I whine about the weather (as opposed to what I usually whine about).

There is an old woman (like maybe 126 years old? It is hard to tell after a certain age) that lives a couple houses from me. Given the cold of the week, one of my random acts of kindness was to bring her garbage cans back to her yard after the guys came by and smooshed the neighborhood’s trash with that big trash smoosher they have on their truck. Side note: I once saw the trash smoosher eat a large sleeper sofa with a heavy metal frame. It was awesome.

As I did my RAK, I was reminded of a similar event a few years back, long before the RAK Challenge, where I was the recipient. Some context: The house next to mine used to be a rental that was occupied by a middle-aged woman who was raising some of her grandchildren while their parents struggled with the ugliness that is addiction and life on the streets. At various times, grandchildren and their parents would come and go as the family suffered through the roller coaster of recovery and relapse. Overall we got along well.

One day as I came home from work, her son was just leaving and we stopped to talk. It turns out he brought my trash cans in that morning, a nice neighborly gesture, but what struck me at the time, and has stayed with me over the last several years, was his description of the experience of having done this. He was bringing his mom’s trash cans in, saw mine, thought about it for a bit and then decided “oh what-the-hell, Erik’s pretty nice to my mom, I’ll go ahead and do this.” It was clear from our conversation his doing this type of act was a really BIG deal and a rare occurrence. This act was out of character for him and out of the norm for his world.

I would like to point out that I had to walk down the street a couple houses (well just 2 houses) and it was freaking cold when I did my RAK, while he didn’t have to walk and the weather was lovely (Whomever calculates the scores, you see I am angling for extra credit, right?), but when you get down to it, we did the Exact Same RAK. For me it was a small act of kindness in a chain of acts of kindness within the context of being a giving, empathetic, “nice” guy in general. For him it was a really BIG deal, a rare event, one that left him surprised at his own behavior and which he continued to mark as highly noteworthy hours later.

This story has nothing to do with one of us being a better glob-o-human than the other, one RAK being more or less worthy, with me being some sort a righteous, upstanding member of the community and his being a some sort of thug momentarily off the streets. No. None of that is true. Don’t get me wrong. Assuming I was the one rated the better person (the likelihood this would be the assessment is open to much debate), it would be super cool if it was true because I could be smug and use the comparison as a way to tell myself stories about how much more valuable and fundamentally kinder I am. Seems a great strategy for shutting up some demons calling nasty and hurtful names from the basement. However I, sadly, knew to my core none of that is true. And what a valuable and useful interaction it still was.

For me the value of that interaction back then and juxtaposed to my own recent trash can act was the awareness that popped. Sometimes there are things that happen, encounters we have, that make you realize just how narrow your vision of the world is. My neighbor’s son and I may have both been standing in my driveway, but we were in different universes. That moment between us was the smallest of glimpses into a place I have never been. And that small glimpse revealed the vast gulf that existed between the basic assumptions we each had about the world. I became keenly aware that the very ground we walked on each day was a different earth beneath our feet.

How did our earths become so different? Do I get to win some cool prize for living a morally better life? Sadly, no, no prize for me. From the perspective of the metaphor we started with, he and I were gifted very different gardens. It is not hard to imagine that his is on the end of the continuum of toxic with massive, thorn-laced weeds. Amazing and meaningful that, even if for a moment, he took a step on a path of thinking about an Other considering he had to fight through denser and more vicious bracken then I ever would. I was touched then and am even more so as I tackle a year of RAK.

My garden? What are the planting in the earth I walk through? In surveying the landscape it is apparent I have a history which planted many difficult, pain-inducing weeds, and also planted space to navigate those weeds and lovely plants. I have been working hard to stay on top of and reduce the weeds through chopping, weed-killing chemicals, and pulling (only the smaller weeds thus far as the largest are still rooted too deeply, maybe some day) while trying to plant more flowers.

I look at this mess that is my garden and I know I am lucky, lucky for the spaciousness, lucky for the flowers and plants, but most of all I am lucky for the repeated chances I have been given to learn how to be a gardener.

RAK at the edge of the shore, or RAK with a side of shame

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I know a woman who, along with her husband, helped me to find the courage to pull back the curtain and expose the man behind who is using the frightening and impressive smoke and mirrors.

I am in Manila, Philippines all this week working on a public health project (I am a behavioral scientist, damn it, not a hippie!). I am sad to be away for Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) but my daughter and I will celebrate when I get back this weekend, and the work I do here might make a difference…..or not. There is a lot I have been thinking about regarding being away on this holiday, but that is for another blog as I am still sorting that out. There is another topic to ponder for today.

My RAK the first day here was to give food to a “street dweller.” Good one, right? Yeah….. but it is more complicated than that. Sigh, isn’t it always? But perhaps a story worth telling and wondering about.

When I drop out of space into a new country the first few hours are a disorienting kaleidoscope of images, sounds and smells (ah, the smells……let’s agree to just skip the descriptions of that part of the experience). I have found that the best way to overcome this overwhelming sensory waterfall is by immersing myself in its waters by walking through busy streets. It also turns out that being out in the sunshine is a good way for me to shake up the circadian rhythm of my brain to help with jet lag. Bonus!

So, after my morning meetings, I headed out toward a park a couple kilometers away from my hotel through the streets with some marvelously intense sensory experience. At the edge of the park, I stumbled across a group of about a dozen hawkers food stalls, closely lined on each side of long picnic tables, under a tin roof, open at each end. Think outdoor food court….with an array of food you would never find in a U.S. shopping mall food court. During mealtimes, these places are crowded, I mean wall-to-wall people crowded, busy, buzzing and it is a challenge to take in and process the whole scene, especially when jet lagged. I walked through, passing the various stalls, trying to absorb the offerings of each stall without lingering too long and garnering the attention of an employee who would then seek to engage me in a negotiation to make a commitment. A tricky process. In the end, I made my choice in part randomly and in part by location because I didn’t think my brain could handle walking all the w
ay back through the buzzing hive without abandoning me and fleeing my skull for a nice quiet spot under the picnic tables. With discretion being the better part of valor, I chose one near the end of the row.

My choice provided me a generous portion of two entrees and rice served in a styrofoam container like what a sub-sandwich might come in with entrees in the container and the rice in the lid. Doing a bit of quick math in my head, this feast cost me about $8 USD…..when my brain was back on line later that day, I realized it only cost me $1.50 USD(!) and that included a soda too.

I sat on a ledge close to the market next to a dental clinic (I don’t know if the proximity of the dental clinic to the hawkers food market was a good or bad thing, or completely random), eating, occasionally chatting with the young men sitting next to me, taking in the sea of people. As I ate, the bustling crowd momentarily parted, revealing a man about 20 ft away, digging through the food court trash can….right there….surrounded by people talking and laughing and quickly eating their lunch before returning to work to whom he appeared to be invisible.

I stood up so I could see over the crowd (turns out that I am sort of a giant in the Philippines) what he was doing. I was saddened, appalled and a bit nauseated to see that he was methodically digging through the trash, opening the discarded styrofoam containers and dumping the contents into a plastic shopping bag.

I immediately stopped eating and started walking toward him. I could see that he had about a gallon of rice and bits of food scrapes in his bag. I was disgusted by how it looked, imagining the effect of the heat and humidity on the contents wrapped in plastic, and, for some reason, the way he kept digging deeper into the trash can to find containers he had not yet opened distressed and upset me. I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to stop now.

As I approached, I opened my container with my fork in it and I offered it to him as one offers a business card in Asia, slight bow and with both hands. In my mind, I was offering food, not trash. He did not break from his task. He took my container, removed the fork, threw the fork into the trash can (points for not littering the fork, nor the emptied containers; all into the trash can), dumped my offering into his bag and continued his search for unopened containers. I was already in the process of turning away but in my head I was thinking, “Wow, I gave you food and you threw it in with the garbage,” which upset me because, coming from my world, I expected him to eat my leftovers…..with the fork I had proved. It was hard for me to understand that in his world my offering meant something different, more to add to his bag.

As I walked away and was thinking about this interaction, I felt a wave of shame. Not because my “special gift” of food had been trashed (literally from my point of view) but because of the interaction in itself. More specifically, shame about my behavior during the interaction. In telling you about my “generosity,” I left out some details, minor details, but they mattered to me. As I approached this man, I averted my gaze, I turned my head away when I handed him the remains of my lunch, i did not make eye contact, I did not even look at him, I did not speak to him, I walked quickly away back into the crowd. And I was ashamed. I recognized a fellow human wrapped in suffering and in need, but I did not acknowledge his humanness.

In many places I have been, I have seen Poverty, sometimes Intense Poverty, Poverty so deeply woven into the fabric of that place that one cannot imagine how it would ever be different. I am no doe-eyed American school boy about the world of humans……well, at least in some contexts anyway. And being present with this man, truly seeing him, acknowledging his personhood was more than I could do. I could not look into the face of this person who was swimming in a massive ocean filled with so many other humans swimming into those same waters while I stood on the shore and tossed in bits of rice. Like feeding koi, standing serenely on the waters edge, safe in the knowledge that I would never swim in those waters. As I walked away into the park, I file this event under “S” for Shame and locked in a filing cabinet for consideration later.

Much to my own surprise, given what I know about my preference for avoidance, a few hours later I did bring it out of the basement and into the sun for consideration. Go, me. I realized that Shame was growing its thorny self on fears and false assumptions about how I “should” act, how the man “should” act. These expectations masked the reality that I had done a random act of kindness. I had seen another human was in need of kindness and responded as best I could, with as much presence as I was capable. That I was overwhelmed by the gulf between my world and his and the intensity of his need, that I could not look him in the face, does not change the fact that I did see him and I acted. And I learned. I felt the rough edge of how far I could go, and I started to question why I could not go further.

I turned this over in my head and in my heart. Why was I unable to accept the situation for what it was and why did I so vehemently want it to stop and go away? Why was I disgusted and rejecting? In a basic way, my offering him my “trash” and wanting it to be “food” was about me, was driven by my not wanting to face the harsh reality of this person’s daily existence, and that of many others in this city. His active demonstration of his intense poverty in the middle of a hive of relative prosperity, while we turned food into trash, we ignored his blatant efforts to turn trash into food. How dare he be a shining beacon of the horror of poverty in action while we were eating lunch. It somehow seemed so much more palatable to walk by beggars on the streets, witness impoverished people mingled with others on the streets thereby being in awareness but hidden enough to not be flashing their Intense Poverty Colors. Ouch. What Ugliness, Ugliness on MY part. How much easier it is to perform random acts of kindness when a Poor Person does not force me to truly step into the horrific reality that is the polluted, neglect stream they swim in.

Crap, crap, crap. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nothing like having the curtain pulled back and receiving a chance to exam so closely you can see each pore of the illusions you create to keep the world an acceptable level of tolerable. A humbling lesson, a humbling realization about myself and my efforts to fit the world into nicely defined boxes, even when I am trying hard at “being open to experience.” AND despite my personal limitations, my demanding expectations of how I should have been to be a “good person” and to truly be a prize winning RAK-er, and my absurd underlying expectations of the impact my small gesture would have on this man’s experience of the moment, despite how much my actions were driven by my discomfort with the situation, despite all of this, this was also still a random act of kindness. While aspects of my behavior were driven by parts of me that I want to be otherwise and hope to change, it is also true that I saw him and was moved by his suffering to interact with him and show kindness. My shame would need to find another place to root and grow (don’t worry about its welfare as there are many other places with fertile soil in the complex landscape that is me).

Among the many important facets of this event and my subsequent questioning is one that is rare and precious. The acknowledgement that it is not a failure to have times when I am less than what I expect from myself, want from myself. This acknowledgement is itself a random act of kindness to myself. A rare and precious RAK indeed.

Enough?

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I know a woman who continues to touch many people’s lives in ways that seem meaningful. A powerful tribute to her life.

I am starting with a digression (You: seriously? Sigh). Thinking back about the “rules” discussion we had last blog. It occurred to me that I should pass along that there is more than knowing the rules (your’s & other people’s). Knowing of Rules is a key piece to the puzzle, but it turns out you have to act on that knowledge. I will confess that my first response to learning this was, “Are you freaking kidding me? I have to do all this difficult and often painful work to explore nooks and crannies and opening locked trunks in my psychological basement (and yes, it is dark, and there are spiders and rats and scary things down there) to discover and bring a large pile of crazy shit out into the sunshine, and now there is more to do!!??” Not a happy camper. I was sort of hoping there would prizes, hopefully a medal, maybe even a parade. “The winner for Best Personal Insight in a Complicated Human goes to……..Erik!” The crowd cheers, I run to the stage, wiping a tear from my eye. I am a bit chagrined to admit that I even drafted an acceptance speech.

Of course, I knew this, knew that it wasn’t just about knowing or sorting & filing these “wise, deep personal insights” (Can I get an Ohhmmmmmm?). It is about using what you learn to begin and sustain the process of becoming a glob of flesh that is more true to……true to…..who you want to be? Who you are? Who you were before your history buried the real You? I really don’t know. It is apparent though that this process involves acting on those “wise, deep personal insights” which is not a simple task.

You: Got it. Thanks for the….. “wise, deep personal insights.” How about that RAK Challenge thing?
Oh, right….. Ok, a couple weeks back, as I was leaving a convenience store, a man who was also walking out dropped one of the lottery tickets he had just purchased. I know that is what was dropped because I too was at the store to purchase a slip of desperate hope (Yes, I understand what 740,000,000 to 1 means, but a guy can dream). I picked it up, called to him and gave it back. Of course when I did, I thought “What if this is the winning ticket?” I suspect he did too.

Lots of different ways to wonder about that RAK (including was that really a RAK or “doing the right thing” but let’s set that question aside…because I want RAK credit for it!). What I want to wonder about is that I know there are people who would say, “What a fucking dumbass! That could have been the winning ticket.” And another group who would say, “What a great act of kindness! That could have been the winning ticket.” What differentiates these two groups of people? Why do some people get so intensely angry, to the point of sometimes killing each other, when someone cuts them off in traffic, but other people don’t care at all? I had a colleague who once threatened to “ruin my career” because he was in such a panic when he found out my team and I had been working independently for months on an idea and he felt it was his idea. On the other hand, I give ideas away all the time, knowing there are so many cool and exciting ideas, I could never do a fraction of them, please take them and nurture them. If I hold on to them they will wither and die from neglect. (I have many character flaws so don’t think I am trying to say how generous and wonderful I am or whatever)

Again, what differentiates these two groups? Two so different ways of being in the world? Of course the world is not this dichotomous and the reasons are numerous, but I do think there is a core perception that explains much of what puts us into one of these camps. I don’t think it has anything to do with intelligence, education, economic status, religion or any of that stuff. Heck, I don’t think it has anything to do with being a “nice person.” What then? I think under all the many factors that contribute to this way of responding is a person’s answer to a simple core question that colors how we view and interact with our world.

The question: Is there enough? Yes or no? The implications of the answer run deep.

Do you feel in your bones that the world is a place of plenty or scarcity? If you believe there is Not Enough, the world becomes a place of winners and losers. You have to prepare for the long winter, for the drought, the time of famine that will surely come. It feels like when things are given to others, it means you get less. You lose when others gain. To protect yourself you need to fight for every resource and see others as competitors who will potentially steal what you need. Do not let down your guard or you will lose. Someone cuts you off in traffic? They are taking from you. Someone has the same idea as you? They have clearly stolen from your precious hoard. Not Enough is a painful way to live.

At times in my life when I found myself coming from a place of Not Enough, I felt tense, constricted, anxious, grasping, putting others down in order to undermine their chance to be given what I needed to feel good about myself. I felt small.

If you believe there is Enough, then others receiving does not mean less for you. You don’t have to be constantly on guard that others are stealing what you need. There are certainly still many psychological monsters to be afraid of and demons to struggle with, but this is one less fear, and it is a huge one to be able to ignore because it is so fundamental. If there is Enough, it becomes easier to let go.

Based on the last few months of daily random kindness, it feels like being able to let go is a foundation. Seems you could still do RAK but the kind acts available to you would be narrow and your ability to sustain this type of kindness impaired. Of course if Not Enough is part of every breath, then RAK is impossible. Not Enough is a painful way to live. Not Enough puts you into a tiny box. Not Enough creates a canyon between you and Love.

What do you think? What do you feel? Is there enough?

Open to the silly

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I know a woman who along with her husband have helped me remember to laugh when things get ridiculous.

A disclaimer: I have great respect for police officers. I think they have dangerous shitty jobs and are paid shit to do them. And because they are fellow humans, sometimes interactions with them become just plain silly.

The other day, a Federal police officer and I were each filling up our respective vehicles. I was wearing a suit (I clean up pretty well, if I do say so myself) because, although I am a tiny minnow swimming in an enormous ocean, I am sometimes asked to attend meetings where much larger fish ponder Important Issues related to this vast sea, and I happen to know some minnow stuff that is of use to their pondering. I knew he was a Federal officer because of the decals on his huge truck-like vehicle and he was wearing the full gear: dark uniform, batman utility belt (what are all those cool looking tools anyway?), bulletproof vest (how horrible this is needed for any job), dark sunglasses, etc. I am quite sure I would not have guessed he was a Federal officer without the truck decals. Despite the accouterments, he was short, chubby and frumpy. Picture Eric Cartman from South Park episode where he impersonates a police officer. Yes, I know, judging, much judging, but in all fairness Washington has many officers of all different flavors so you have an opportunity to collect a lot of data. Most of these brave men and women look physically fit and sharp, like they have their act together and they know what they are doing. The kind of people who, in an emergency, you would feel quite comfortable following the instructions they would provide. This guy, not so much.

So we are quenching the thirst of our fossil fuel consuming machines. I am making note of my judging with the heartfelt intention of continuing to try to be less judging in all areas of my life (Namaste, you damn hippies). I say hi to him and smile. He provides the requisite serious nod. I turn to my phone to check on my work email.

Then things take a turn toward the silly. As sometimes happens, when our gas tanks say, “Thanks, I am stuffed. Really, not another drop” and the gas nozzle automatically shuts off, there is a bit of gasoline spillage that runs down our cars and drips on the ground. I hate it when that happens even it is only a 1/2-1 cup of gas.

Then the police officer (PO) pops up his head and says, “You have created an environmental incident and have to pay a fine.”
Me (Thinking I have misheard): Yeah, I hate when the nozzle doesn’t cut off in time and the gas spills.
PO: You committed an environmental violation and you will have to pay a fine to cover the clean up and damage.
Me: Excuse me?
PO: This is an environmental issue, punishable by a fine.
Me: Oh…….ummm….. Oh…..
He stares at the massive toxic chemical spill as it spreads across the concrete, envisioning the impending environmental disaster. I stare at the wet spot about the size of a dinner plate that is already beginning to evaporate.

PO: And this didn’t have happen if you had been paying attention instead of looking at your phone. (To make a point, he stops his nozzle and removes it without a drop spilling (well, maybe a few drops were spilling but it didn’t seem fruitful to point that out))
Me:……… (In my head: Really, Officer Frumpy? What about the automatic nozzle? What about perspective about the actual amount of gas spilled? Is this really how you want our brief interaction to go? One which started with me being fucking nice and saying hello?)
PO: You need to go inside, tell them what you did, and they will document this and fine you.

Now this is a turning point in our story. I have a decision to make. This interaction has, from my prospective, descended into complete silliness. Not that I am happy to have spilled gasoline, but an “environmental incident” for which I need to go inside, report my heinous offense and face a well-deserved punishment from which society can only pray I learn a valuable lesson and repent my evil cellphone checking, gas spewing ways seems a bit of an over-response. Do I protest? Laugh and ignore him? Try to reason with Officer Frumpy? Stand my ground for all who are oppressed by The Man? Get sassy and be an asshole? Refuse to face my fate? Make a run for it? Drive home as fast as I can, grab my remaining pets, a change of clothes, leave a note for my daughter, and make a run for Canada?

I chose a different route. In part because who wants to make a run for Canada with winter coming? However, the primary reason was because of the Random Acts of Kindness gig. I thought about how his typical day might go. I thought about the stream this human might be swimming in, the monsters and fears that come out from under the rocks on the bottom of that stream. I could be wrong, Office Frumpy might be a highly respected member of his organization and throughout his world, but I wondered if instead he felt frequently challenged as to his competence and worth. If he felt like that others would only take him seriously if he constantly demonstrated his grasp of the rules and laws, and that he must always be on guard for receiving lack of respect. I wondered if maybe he felt bad about himself.

I may have been so completely wrong in my assessment of what it might be like to be him that there should have been an additional fine levied against me for such poor assessment skills, but it didn’t matter. If I was wrong and he is a Rock Star among Federal Officers, it didn’t mater. If I was right, then treating him with sincere kindness was a good way to go. And so, this human who I imagined was struggling in heavy seas was the recipient of that day’s Random Act of Kindness, whether he knew it or not.

Me: Wow, I had no idea. Yes, I will definitely go inside, let them know and pay the fine.

Keeping the best straight face I could, I walked inside to to confront my grizzly fate. As I expected, when I explained the nature of my offense and that I had come to be punished, the young man behind the counter looked bewildered. I told him the tale of my environmental incident and, although he listened closely, his confusion only grew. Finally. he blurted out that they don’t write those things down and they don’t fine customers. He seemed greatly relieved when I accepted this information, wished him a good day, and left without insisting on being punished.

I laughed really hard when I got back to my car. A gift a laughter from whatever entity oversees the Great Game of RAK.
Addendum: The Universe has the most marvelous sense of humor. When I was leaving work last night, I walked past the security guards, smiled and said good night, went about about 10 steps and realized I left my briefcase in my office. I turned around walked back to the guards, explained I needed to go back. One of the guards, much to surprise of both myself and the other guard, demanded to see my ID. I explained it was in my briefcase….in my office…. He said that once I pass them, I was considered to be “outside” and needed to show ID or have someone sign me in. I said, but I just walked by you, I never left your sight, I turned around without touching the door….. The guard stood his ground. I started laughing and walked away. Well played, Universe, well played.

Traffic

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I know a young woman whose husband and family I have been thinking about much this week.

While in Beijing I performed a RAK in helping a little old lady (seriously little, seriously old) get her cart onto the curb after crossing a busy intersection.

Traffic in Beijing is fascinating. This is a picture of a fairly quiet street. Amidst the cars, buses, trucks, scooters, electric carts, bicycle carts, push carts, electric bicycles, bicycles, oh and pedestrians, there is an almost Zen-like flow in the chaos. A flow I would never drive in. This flow is hard to describe but my observation is that there is indeed a flow. Maybe as long as everyone is driving with the same underlying assumptions that a certain level of reckless abandon and heartfelt belief that others can clearly see how important your travel is relative to their’s and you are merely politely surfing around them as you navigate your way to your Important Destination with your Important Passengers/Cargo/Mission, then somehow it all works. At least most of the time.

This phenomena is curious, worth noting and, I hope you will agree, relevant to RAK. Maybe. We could get all fancy and talk about all the various sociological, cultural, psychological, historical, political, etc., reasons why this flow amidst the chaos happens, but let’s not. Let’s boil it down. It generally works even when it is a hot mess because everyone is following the same rules. When you drop a Beijing driver into the U.S., they become a Bad Driver. When you drop a U.S. driver into Beijing, they become a Bad Driver. It’s all about the rules. When people are not following the same rules, things get messy, car accidents happen (Hint: This just might maybe sort of be a metaphor for human interactions and relationships).

It becomes easy, in fact probably the default, to assume that everyone is following the same rules as we are. Going beyond this, our rules are so deeply ingrained into us, most of us aren’t even aware we have rules. We move through a world our history and experience have created, respond to ghosts from the past (We could say the Ghost of Christmas Past but I feel like we have done enough with Mr. Dickens’ fine holiday classic). It takes a huge amount of effort and practice to step out of the individual streams we are each floundering in (Fuck, should have practiced more in the pool before taking to the open water) and be aware of what comes to us so easily, letting those underlying rules determine how we are.

And it is also really hard to learn other people’s rules, because they don’t know what the rules are themselves. I think to learn their rules you have to do scary things like acknowledge when someone is upset, sad, angry or (and this is killer for me) disappointed in us. We have to find ways to find out why without directly asking why (Hint Relationship Fans: Few things cause more defensiveness than asking someone why they did something), because the person doesn’t know why. We need to ask about feelings and other sticky tar-like substances, listen, be vulnerable, be present with our own scary stuff, go for a swim in their stream which I can assure you has water which is weird and much grosser than the water in your familiar stream.

A small digression: What I would most like to know from the people I love is the answer to the question what are you most afraid of? I don’t mean things that make sense to be afraid of like spiders, heights and clowns. I mean the really scary stuff like fear of being abandoned, a sense that you don’t belong, that you will never be good enough no matter how hard you try, that people only like you because they don’t know just how horrible you are, and fear you are fundamentally unloveable. The stuff that drives the craziest of our rules. I would like to know so I can protect the people I love from these monsters, and, if I can’t protect them, be there with them when these terrors come to them.

Where were we? Oh, yeah… If I were you, at this point point I would ask, “What about you, Mr. Blog, Mr. Random Acts of Kindness? If we all are fucked up in how we live our days and interact with these other Flesh Puppets, what about you? Have you risen above your rules?” To which I say, “Fuck no. Did you not read the part about this taking a lot of effort and practice? What I have I told you in this blog that indicated I was all about embracing effort and practice?” Also go back and read the part about how I have no idea what I am doing as this year unfolds. I think it may have been in the FAQ, I’m not sure. I can guarantee you that my preferred strategy is to try to placate the upset, sad, angry, disappointed person as soon as possible, without truly knowing why, because obviously that person is having this feeling toward me because of something fundamentally wrong with me and I would rather not have the two of us bring that fundamental wrong into the light of day. Although I will give myself some credit for knowing that there are rules. I even found my rule book and I am on chapter 4…..well, almost done with chapter 3… Long way to go. Yes, a long way to go.

On the bright side, having committed to a year of Random Acts of Kindness is forcing me to become increasingly aware of my rules and how they affect my interactions. So, see, this is about random acts of kindness. This rules thing is one of the somethings-I-don’t-have-words-for that is unfolding as I continue to try to be open to what comes from daily RAK.

Back to Beijing traffic! Even if you are not a member of Beijing traffic, you become part of this precarious dance whenever you step off the curb. Crossing the street is not for the timid, nor for the foolish. You must cross with just the right balance of certainty the drivers will stop and awareness the driver may opt to run you over. Personally I think it is a matter of sensing how much the driver is concerned hitting you would dent his car and the driver’s tolerance for paperwork (I think there must be a lot of paperwork to fill out whenever you encounter the Chinese Police, although I am happy to say I have never had an occasion to find out). So in addition to playing the Traffic Game by the same rules, there is also a component of how you move into the world that determines your success or smushed, messy failure. Crap, another metaphor. Sometimes the flexibility and power of language is such a pain in the ass. All right, whatever.

How we approach the frightening task of crossing “the road” has a huge impact on our relationships. Although if chickens can do it, surely we can too. It is all about the awareness you may get squished and still stepping out with confidence and an open heart. Another way to frame it; a willingness to step out into traffic with the core belief in your value as a human, and caution that there are people who aren’t following your rules, who hold the belief that their goal, their need, their want is more important than your heart. Or perhaps they are simply willing to risk the extensive Chinese police paperwork to get where they are going. One never knows.

Dogs again

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I know a woman who continues to touch people’s lives despite being gone.

Beijing air quality; smog as thick as the fog in a Sherlock Holmes’ story, crystal clear in the space of a day. I am sure there is a metaphor in here about how the smog of our personal histories affect our ability to see the world as it is….., but I have no idea what that would be.

Etta
The day I left for China, Etta (my second dog diagnosed with cancer, the one laying down in this picture) was not looking well and then deteriorated rapidly. She went from fine to not fine to suffering in less than 48 hours, and was increasingly suffering. The vet confirmed rapid spread of the cancer. My friends Keith & Kay and my amazing daughter Haley made the tough and loving decision to put Etta down. She died quietly in her own backyard on a beautiful Fall day surrounded by 3 people who cared about her, while I was 10,000 miles away.

So much sorrow, so far from home, feeling so alone at a meeting where no one would understand my loss. And I was aware of how lucky I am. Lucky to have people in my life who can care, and make the hard decisions, about things that matter so much to me. Lucky that I have people to share my sadness with via text, email and Facebook from the other side of the planet, people who care about that sadness even though some of them don’t understand it. Lucky to have connections to people even as I struggle to try to strengthen and find meaningful grounding in those connections.
Pursuing random acts of kindness for the last couple months is a key piece of how I was able to recognize how lucky I am and also allow this grief to be what it is. Oh, Christ, Damn Hippie rising…..but still true.

There were wonderful people at this meeting in Beijing, several of whom I know fairly well, a couple of whom might even be considered friends or at least close colleagues. All of them extremely bright, caring people, passionate about the value of their work and it’s genuine potential to help people. These are compassionate, hard working professionals doing public health work that matters. And none of these good people were people who would have been able to understand my deep sense of loss at the death of “just a dog.” We could spend a chunk of time exploring a variety of reasons for this, but I think most of this exploration would lead us to the same place. The people at this meeting and I did not share the same world view regarding the value of pets as part of a family and the emotional response to a pet dying.

Some of these folks undoubtedly would have had empathy for my grief in a general human-I-know-hurting kind of way, but there would not have been a real connection, a genuine understanding and shared human experience. It does not say anything bad or good about them or me. That gap just is. Given that it is becoming increasingly clear that, amongst other things, a year of RAK is about finding ways to connect with other humans, this gap matters. Then how do we bridge it? As much as I have strong and meaningful connections to my pets, I didn’t think trying to drag these fellow humans out of their world and into mine was going to be particularly helpful. In fact that seemed ridiculous and like a great way to confuse my Asian colleagues (even more than I suspect I already do every time they interact with me). Instead I made a conscious decision that I would bridge this gap by crossing into their world as best I could. I tried to listen.

There are a number of students and junior professionals at this type of meeting. Although they are bright with many good ideas and enthusiasm, the structure of this kind of meeting does not generally allow their voices to be heard. Still, like of all of us, they want to be heard and I am often approached (remember I am a “nice” & approachable kind of guy) during breaks to answer a question or discuss an idea. Being that I am “nice” & approachable, I am consistently friendly and engaging, but in all honesty I am not necessarily giving this person my full attention. With all the context above, at this meeting I tried to listen as fully as I could. I tired to be as fully present as I could. I tried to give each of these bright, enthusiastic humans all of my attention when they approached me. I had many good discussions but the main thing I heard underneath the words was, “Please listen to me. Please see me. Please let me know that what I have to say is valuable, that I am valuable.” All of which I tried to do by being “there” when we interacted.

This was the RAK I repeatedly tried to do across these days. This was how I tried to bridge the gap between their strange foreign weird world and my strange foreign weird world. I think it mattered.

Fear of Random Acts of Kindness: Part Two

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I know a young woman who, along with her husband, has inspired me to deepen the process of asking the question “Does it have to be this way?”

Continuing on my last post, thinking about how attempting to perform daily random acts of kindness over an extended period shines a light on those times when I hesitate, or in all honesty walk away even when it is clear someone needs kindness (least anyone starts thinking I am some kind of saint…although I believe we have clearly established that I am “nice,” right?) . This year will reveal many things, both the good and the challenging, which whirl around my brain and through my various guts and innards making it sometime easy and sometimes hard, even impossible, for me to perform RAK. Some of this goop I know nothing about. Some of this goop I know quite a bit about, although I will confess that it turns out that even the goop I firmly believe I am keenly aware of and have well under control, turns out to be more goopy than I thought. Huh, perhaps I should have stated that up front several posts back, sort of a disclaimer: Let’s not make any kind of assumption that at the end of this year, everything is going to be wrapped up in a tidy package. That would be most awesome though. I wonder if I would get some sort of prizes for being so wise and having used such good thinkology? I will look into that. In the meantime, I am a gloriously complicated person and that’s all we got to work with.

Back to RAK: Why is it that sometimes performing simple random acts of kindness can be difficult, make me feel uncomfortable and even require me to push past fear? An important part of the underlying goop, for me, is the fear associated with Ignorance and Want.

The second child that the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge is a girl named Want. Like ignorance, she is “wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable” and “yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.” For me, Want pushes on two painful pressure points: The wants of others/Others and my own wants.

Our strengths and weakness are elements of who we are along the same continuum. This has been said by like a 100 gazillion people, but I’ll give a nod to Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.”) because that seems fancy and intellectual. I have a history which has shaped me into an empathetic, nurturing, giving, “nice” kind of guy (among my many wonderful qualities). This “niceness” byproduct of my history oozes out across all areas of my life and is part of my best self, and is the source of a significant challenge for me when it comes to RAK. Part of the history which hand-crafted this gloriously complicated human involved interacting over many years with some important people in my life who were struggling with their own histories such that they were Bottomless Pits of Want. Their very human and understandable drive to fill that empty wanting place creates an intensely lonely isolation and desperate hunger that interferes with the belonging and connection they fundamentally need. Now picture pouring pitchers of water into a sieve, trying to fill it, and, because you are an empathetic, nurturing, giving, “nice” kind of human, you do this for years, decades.

Too melodramatic? It is hard to find the right balance. Your patience is appreciated, and your abandonment of this post would be understandable

Why does this matter for what we are talking about? What does this have to do with RAK? Oh, my bad. I thought the connection was obvious. This has to do with RAK because there are some people whose wants and needs are massive, huge icebergs floating through the shipping lanes of our daily lives. Some are easy to spot (the homeless), others more difficult (pretty much anyone we might encounter). Of course RAK is not about rescuing people or in any way trying to fill Bottomless Pits, but being fully present often means becoming aware and acknowledging on some level that there are abandoned, neglected, hideous, wolfish children under the Ghost of Christmas Present’s robes. So, for me, there is both the reminder of sadness of futile attempts to fill a sieve and of the pain that remained for that person with the Bottomless Pit, and the sting that comes from stepping into someone else’s day and sensing the depth of the iceberg below the water line. I think I am mixing my metaphors, but hopefully you will kindly stack them into neat piles for me.

My own wants? Yeah……. undoubtedly there are issues here that RAK will continue to raise (Oh, goody! Another valuable growth experience), but this is a start (Thanks, Mr. Dickens!). Want- abject, frightful, hideous child. Think about people in your life who are on the Bottomless Pit end of the spectrum. What descriptors come to mind? Don’t worry, you don’t need to tell anyone what those descriptors are, so please be honest. How about this one; imagine a friend is telling you about someone they think might be a good person for you to date. They are attractive, smart, funny, nice, have a great job, you share interests, oh, and they are needy (Insert noise of a loud buzzer). Right? Nobody wants to be with someone needy and nobody wants to be needy, especially if you have had encounters with the child Want. Being needy, being Want is a fast track to rejection and a one-way ticket to Dumpsville, population me. But 1) everyone has needs and wants, you can’t get around that, and 2) Our culture (notice I switched blame to our culture rather than my history? Clever move on my part) doesn’t provide good role models for how to appropriately express needs and wants. I double checked the Owner’s Manual for Being an Adult- nowhere does it define what constitutes being “needy.” How the fuck are we supposed to know if we are being needy or not? A wise strategy then becomes to hide our wants (under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present seems a good place), which, as you already know, doesn’t make the needs and wants go away and leads to all kinds of spectacular relationship and human interaction disasters. Insert feedback loop of crazy and dysfunction.

Let’s not forget that Want has a brother. Want and Ignorance are a package. What are we supposed to do? I don’t have clue of what we supposed to do. Here is an important piece for me to learn from RAK. This adventure involves being willing to interact with others by being open to the moment, humble and without expectations about my role in their day (and vice versa), and without judgment of whatever comes up inside me pre-, during and post interaction.

Ugh, this really doesn’t capture the depth of what I am trying to convey. Maybe you could flesh it out in your head and shape it into something that communicates something important? I would appreciate it. In the meantime I will continue working on finding ways to understand and describe this whole process, this something that RAK is stirring.

Fear of Acts of Random Kindness: Part One

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Random Acts of Kindness: A one year challenge

I know a young woman who, along with her husband, has inspired me to attempt something which is much more difficult than it might seem.

Today I gave a small amount of money to a woman who was begging, then I stopped and talked with her for a few minutes. Not about anything important; the weather, that there seemed to be a lot of people out today, then wished each other well. This could just be the yoga talking (I was leaving a class) because you know how that kind of thing cranks up your inner Damn Hippie, but it seemed to me that the few moments of talking was more valuable to her than the money…..nah, probably not.

Sustaining random acts of kindness across an extended period of time, at least as I have defined the RAK Challenge (which is all that counts, right?), requires being open to the world around us, and, the longer we try to to maintain RAK, the more open we become which is increasingly scary. The is no better way to find your painful, frightened, sore-to-the-touch, fragile spots (sort of like where you are ticklish and did not know it….only not) than to attend, really attend, to what others in the world are evoking from you, because often what is being evoked does not represent the best parts of who you would like to be.

Why do you move toward some people and away from others? I mean literally physically drift toward some people and away from others, as well as psychologically. If I pay attention to my day, I notice that I have dozens and dozens of micro-engagements that normally I am only vaguely aware of, if at all. There is Something comforting just beneath the surface that pulls and pushes me as I move through my world. It is like my whole day is made up of a game of “getting warmer, getting colder.” This Something does a pretty good job of making my world feel safe. I am moved toward the attractive, familiar and predictable, and away from the ugly, strange and unpredictable. Ah, nice…. A buffered space to keep my world cozy, like a favorite old sweatshirt. It doesn’t matter what I might miss out on (There might have been balloons and pony rides and one of those big Moon Bounce things) as long as this Something keeps me from dealing with the ugly, strange and unpredictable because that might be dangerous.

So how does this fit into RAK? As I noted above, RAK requires us to be open to the world. If I am going to be aware of those who might benefit from an act of random kindness, I have to be prepared to move toward people and situations I might not normally move toward. The Something and RAK cannot exist in the same space at the same time (Maybe it is like matter and anti-matter? That would be cool and sciencey). I find that if I want to be available for RAK, the Something cannot be driving how I navigate the day. It takes effort on my part, sometimes significant effort, to actively choose to take myself on a different course than the quiet waters the Something steers toward. I have to be willing to sail into stormy seas where there be monsters. Which sounds like a horrible idea, yes? (The answer is: Yes, that sounds like a horrible idea).

I am mocking myself, which is half the fun of writing this blog, for leading a life often characterized by avoidance, but I am keenly aware of how destructive this has been, especially to the people I love the most. I suspect letting the Something helps us avoid is the root of many bad things that happen in the world around us: violence, depression, cruelty, prejudice, judging, isolation from other people, thinking your coworker is a complete idiot who deserves bad things,… I get it. I have known this for years, and to my credit (and I want credit here) I have been working on being different in the world for quite some time…..with mixed success. Not to point fingers here, but avoidance and automatically defaulting to letting the Something dictate the course of the day is how the vast majority of us live our lives, but I am not pointing fingers. I don’t know what pushes and pulls you as you move through your day, but I do know mine. My Something has a name, and that name is “Fear.” Almost never is it screaming and running down the halls fear (almost never), but fear nonetheless.

There is a powerful but rarely appreciated scene in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Present pulls back his robe and reveals two emaciated and horrifying children: Ignorance and Want. I think my Fear can be summarized by these two unwanted and neglected children. Let’s start with Ignorance, which Dickens warns us to be most afraid of, although personally Want is scarier to me. I suspect most of us encounter people everyday who we perceive as ugly, strange and unpredictable (i.e., Danger, Danger, Danger!!), and we avoid them, walk away, walk around, don’t make eye contact, do not in anyway acknowledge them, do not in anyway acknowledge that they are a person. These dangerous characters are everywhere! The homeless, the mentally ill, the drug addicts, the street corner preachers, people on the Metro, driving to work, on the street corners, some of them even work in my building. It becomes so easy to see these people as The Other. Not part of me, not a member of my group, not even really another person, just an obstacle to be navigated around. Tara Brach does a much better job than I ever can in talking about this (TaraBrach.com), but we’re not on her website right now, are we?

I do not know these creatures. I do not want to know these creatures. I am ignorant of their status as humans and prefer to keep it that way. But then there is this fucking RAK thing. Damn it!! Remaining ignorant prevents me from being fully present with this person, from stepping, even if just for a moment, into their world which may be full of suffering, whether they be the homeless guy by the stoplight, the cleaning woman who empties the trash, the coworker you think is a dick wad although you have never actually spoken with him. Note I am not saying throw caution to the wind and chase after drug addicts down darkened alleyways (Wait, I can help!) or be completely vulnerable to untrustworthy people (Your coworker may in fact be a dick wad) or empty your wallet when the homeless guy asks for money (I suspect you need that money yourself). For me a fundamental element of doing random acts of kindness is to be a smidge less ignorant regarding this creature that theoretically might be human, to listen when an Other talks, to make eye contact and say “hi” even when I don’t give the homeless guy money. This is part of why I put on my Big Boy pants and stopped to talk to an ugly, strange and unpredictable homeless woman, instead of just scurrying by.

All of this may be completely irrelevant to you or anyone other than me, but for me another piece of the puzzle is falling into place, there is an understanding, still quite vague, that is taking shape. What of the other orphan? What of Want? I will talk about her when I blog again, or perhaps I should quit while I am ahead.

A Year of the Random Acts of Kindness Challenge

Exploring what I might learn during a year of daily random acts of kindness.

Tag Archives: Self-exploration

Odd Moments of RAK

Holiday Drift

Gardens and Trash Cans

RAK at the edge of the shore, or RAK with a side of shame

Enough?

Open to the silly

Traffic

Dogs again

Fear of Random Acts of Kindness: Part Two

Fear of Acts of Random Kindness: Part One

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