Kind and Loving

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

Who has not found the heaven below  

Will fail of it above.  

God's residence is next to mine,  

His furniture is love.

Emily Dickinson 

In the end, only kindness matters.

Jewel, singing “These Hands”

Hello Reader,

Got kind and loving?

Recently I was thinking about Self Improvement. Something I lately realize: Improvement leads to Achieving One’s Potential, which leads to achieving kindness: The real potential. This new idea I gleaned from a famous blogger, Penelope Trunk. I was fascinated by her post Living Up to Your Potential is BS (footnote) from August 2008.

I would hope that being filled with kindness could lead to expressing love. 

Meanwhile, an even more famous lady, Hollywood’s Kristen Bell, notes that love can be a superpower. And she would know, since she voices Anna, the girl who’s sister Elsa, in the kingdom of Arendelle, has a superpower over ice and snow: In Frozen, the Disney movie.  

Speaking of “sisters,” if my name was Sister Teresa I suppose I would know all about kindness, and move on to India and become Mother Teresa. Then I could blog my knowledge about kindness back to you. But no, I am only me… all I can do, from various sources, is glean knowledge for being kind and loving, and then share. Here’s Penelope—her post starts with a photograph of a man in bed with a sheet over him, reading a book crudely titled How to Get Up and Get Dressed

QUOTE

(After being optimistic enough to get out of bed) 

The next big goals we have are the spiritual kind: Be good, be kind, treat people with respect. You probably don’t write these on your to do list, but now that you read them, surely you are thinking to yourself, “Oh yeah, I want to remember to do that.”

Living up to your potential is not crossing off everything on your to do list on time, under budget. Or canonizing your ideas in a book deal. Really, no one cares. You are not on this earth to do that. Trust me. No one is. You are on this earth to be kind. That is your only potential.

And then you have to earn a living.

UNQUOTE

So heartening! I could do that.

You are probably wondering what Kristen said. As it happens, in an interview with Mark Daniell, in the Calgary Sun, November 17, Mark asked: 

“My niece had a question when she heard I was talking to you. She wanted to know if the new movie is going to answer why Princess Anna doesn’t have powers?”

QUOTE

She does have powers. Her power is love. Her power has always been love. Anna has always had the strongest power of all. You may tell your niece that. 

Personally, I’ve walked through life feeling like I have a superpower because I’ve practiced trying to love everyone around me and it has filled me up with a ton of self-esteem. But I love when I’m good to people. I love it. I love that about myself. That might sound selfish, but I sleep so well at night being kind to everyone around me. 

It’s not to say that I don’t have bad days, I do. But when people ask me that question I always tell them: Anna does have a superpower and that power is love.

UNQUOTE

So inspiring! I could practise being loving. 

Of course I could always work on becoming wealthy, of course. But if one day I meet you after making my first million, wearing a broad imported silk tie, and a big wide platinum lapel broach, then I would hope that what you would remember about me, later, is not my success in achieving affluence, but my success in becoming kind and loving. 

And wouldn’t that be a worthy goal down through the new year of 2020?

As long as I’m gleaning wisdom from people more rich and famous than I am, let the last words be from a man my own age, Peter Capaldi, in his character as the twelfth Doctor Who, “summing up” before his time runs out:

“Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.”

Sean Crawford

Calgary

January

2020

Footnotes:

~For a follow up, you might like my post Be Kind to Clerks, archived November 2019.

~Here’s Penelope Trunk’s blog post.

~More on Doctor Who’s end-of-life summary of his motives: 

From his final episode, The Doctor Falls, on that fated day when he has no hope to see the next sunrise, comes this long video clip. He is a near-immortal, pleading for help from the only other near-immortals he knows. 

He says, “if I stand…then maybe some of them might live, maybe not many, maybe not for long, but then who does?” This in the context of him having seen many mortal generations grow old and perish—but he has always hoped not to harden his heart to ephemeral humans. And me, as I get older and crankier I retain such hope too. The Doctor remained loving. The Bible says “Greater love has no man…” 

(Private note to young precious fans: Peter Capaldi and I are old enough to remember when the TV ending credits listed “Doctor Who,” so that can be a time lord’s name, a name used by Peter in TV interviews)

~From the other sister, with her superpower here (the sing-along-version) is her most famous song.

~And OK, I’ve linked to her before, but here is Jewel’s most famous song.

Kind to Clerks

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

“In the end, only kindness matters.”

Jewel, singing These Hands

"She's a living being! Not a means to an end! 
Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda, to folks wanting to revive a critically ill woman to help them.

Hello Reader,

Got kindness?

It’s late November. Grey and cloudy. You may have seen that perennial favorite, The Value of a Smile at Christmas. So true. Now, how about the value of you and me being kind to clerks, during all seasons, regardless of cloudy weather?

Kindness is its own reward. After all, being kind reminds me that, unlike how I might have felt when I was unemployed, I am not alone, not some hard billiard ball on a cold plain bouncing off alien spheres: No, I’m a part of our warm human community. To be kind means I have to get off my couch and out of the house; kind means opening my eyes; kind means widening my heart for the priceless grace of seeing the careworn shoes of others. And that’s why tender green Boy Scouts will do good deeds, and seasoned old capitalists will give aide to charity. 

Being frugal, I do nearly all my shopping at big stores. Nevertheless, there is a local convenience store where I go inside saying, of course, a few words for our brief transaction, and, beyond that, I often manage an extra sentence or two. One time, the clerk remarked I wasn’t wearing my usual (My neighbor Totoro) baseball cap. Another day, he told me I was his favorite customer. I walked out into the night feeling blank. I didn’t know what to feel—maybe angry. Obviously his less frugal more important customers, the ones who fly in the door more often than I, and buy more stuff than I, aren’t his favorites. How baffling. Why were his frequent flyers ignoring him? Did they at least give him a smile? I guess I was angry.

In Calgary, by chance, I once met two excited teen age girls, in from the town of “Chesty,” who assumed I was visiting Calgary too. “You are our favorite customer! We like how you leave us magazines to read.” I knew them from the Chestermere donut shop, one where a young man had thanked me, saying he especially liked how I left a magazine-sized book on how to draw comics, manga, in the style of Japan and South Korea.  It was at the Chestermere Safeway (grocery store) that a cashier had told me that another cashier had asked her to tell me, “her favorite customer,” that she had moved to British Columbia. …I will confess I’m not positive which cashier she was. My point is: I have credibility for an essay on being nice to clerks.

Kindness. Knowing that smiles enrich the giver as much as the receiver, I “set my intention” to be nice. I remember what an old man once said: “I try to have everyone come away from me without feeling worse.” Also I remind myself that clerks may be on auto-pilot, amidst a dull routine, tired, with shoes that hurt their poor feet. I could therefore smile, and at least make eye contact, to welcome them as fellow beings. It logically follows that I could try to see them not as my means, but an end in themselves.

I got “people as means verses ends” thing off some European philosopher. (Kant) He thought regarding people as a means was beneath one’s dignity. Too often people are undignified, and don’t even know it: Some folks, for example, can be cruel and callous towards a professional ball player. To them, he is merely a paid means to their entertainment. 

Meanwhile an amateur, such as an Olympian, we watch with benevolence: She is not being paid, she is not there to be used by us, as a “sports object,” but instead she acts for herself and the “spirit of the Games.” Olympians will still compete even if the TV cameras are broken and the crowds absent.—And hey, don’t expect any cameras from Yankee imperialists: those clowns, while covering Vancouver 2010, couldn’t even show K.D. Lang singing Hallelujah. Not very kind to Canadians, eh?

Here’s a scene: I was in the “lobby” of Sobeys liquor store, just past the two cashiers. A  middle aged lady stood at a card table to give away free samples. Considering that maybe her feet hurt, and without treating her as a robot with a recorded sales spiel, I chose the red wine over the brown beer sample and some sort of novelty drink. She told me the red was made with “a hint of oak.” I shopped around the aisles, came back, and brightened her day by saying, “Some trivia for you: Speaking of ‘hint of oak,’ there’s a famous perfume in Europe that uses a hint of moss… but it’s not sustainable, because all the moss is being used up.” 

She was all ears, so I told her of going to a perfume exhibit (at Sutton House) with laboratory experts as part of the exhibit. As we talked, a cashier came over. Last week she had helped me settle on a backpack. She said, “That cooler pack you bought? I got one for my husband.” I nodded back to her, including both ladies in our talk, and said, “That’s the one where hubby will have a bottle opener on the front shoulder strap, (looking towards the first lady) and the insides are lined with reflective aluminum.” (for Steam Whistle beer) We three continued our moments of good fellowship. 

As Christmas approaches, I think even nonChristians can agree with Tiny Tim: “God bless us, everyone.” 

Sean Crawford

November

Calgary

2019

Footnotes: 

~Thinking of clerks, I remembered what a grandmother advised a girl about her date: If your date is less than nice and polite to your waiter, then he’s “not marriage material,” for he will one day be less than polite to you.

~Speaking of manga, and My Neighbor Totoro baseball cap, the last time I pointed curious parents towards specific animated comics, anime, was in URLs Again, archived September 2019. You know, I still haven’t posted my first URL piece: So I guess now I’ll save it for Christmas.

~I mentioned the perfume exhibit in my essay about Sutton House, archived as Welcome Without Savoir Faire, March 2018. 

~I’m not trying to offensively push onto you my 25th of December religion, but here are two sweetly offensive religious songs:

A song to offend cynics: (link) It’s Jewel singing These Hands (with God at the end)

A song to offend homophobes: (link) It’s out-of-closet K.D. Lang, but not at Vancouver 2010, no, it’s the one where she bows to Leonard Cohen, the creator of Hallelujah.

~The way I avoid feeling “used” by rude web surfers is by requiring my dear readers to take two seconds to go to my archives— because I am not a “link object!” 

(Note: When surfers of my Death of Buffy piece (January 2012) were impolite, I went back and took out the links I had made for them. But I left the essay) 

You may depend on it: Impolite people will never make a two-second effort. See No Links is Good Links archived July 2012.

Giving Love

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got love?

They sing, “Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.” (by Stephen Sondheim) Exactly. 

My next post could be something complex, dark and heavy, like Russian politics. Today it’s a brand new year, time for something that feels simple, productive and light.

They sing, “Love is something if you give it away, 

Give it away,

Give it away,

Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.” (Magic Penny) Exactly.

Sounds similar to what I would hear from a wholesome, clean cut man in Alcoholics Anonymous, telling me he needs to go help a gutter wino if he hopes to keep his own sobriety—You keep it by giving it away. Like love.

I’m no expert. Not in addictions and not in love. But every one has their own little story to offer, whether at an AA meeting or in a little new year’s essay. Today I want to offer my thoughts on love. Three thoughts. As I see it, if you only like two then, as they sing, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” (Meatloaf)

Thought One

The ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, said, Being deeply loved gives you strength, loving others gives you courage. That’s true for me. 

A man with his own floor all dusty will go sweep his fiancé’s floor. I have done terribly risky things to help someone I loved. (No examples today, lest you think I’m trying to look like a hero)

Thought Two

They say, “You can’t love others until you love yourself.” Really?

Not true.

Not for me.

Maybe because I didn’t get strength from being loved, or maybe I didn’t have role models for love, I don’t know, but I surely couldn’t love myself, not for many years. Only when others needed me to summon my courage to love them, and I took action, did things change. 

Maybe I role modelled for myself, deep down inside, how I could believe in love. Believing first for others, and then at last for myself. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that wise old saying is wrong for me. I had to love others first.

Thought Three

To explain this thought I need to tell a story. At my toastmasters club, at a recent Tuesday night meeting, I did the opening invocation to get the meeting started. I said my “one to two minute” invocation and ended it with a phrase about love that moved people. I know, because people referred to it during the meeting. So here’s my story:

When I was college I would sometimes see my counsellor —and I don’t mean for study tips! You had to sign up for a slot well in advance. One time I went to my appointment with a light heart and nothing to say but, “(cough) I made this appointment because I knew it would be during mid-terms, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”

In my career program in recreation therapy there were eighteen of us. In our first semester we all signed up for a class in drama, thinking we were going to make puppets or something. Nope. It was your standard “introduction to” class: Nothing to do with acting or staging a play, for humans or puppets, and everything to do with experiencing the zen of drama, learning to have “energy and concentration.” 

Our teacher was excited to learn that some of us had taken drama in high school, thinking these students could set her class an example of “courage to be present.” But no, because one or more of these high school graduates was a spoiled brat. Truly. One day our teacher just snapped, yelling at us future therapists, “If you’re going to stay in this field then you’re going to have to be more loving!”

I just happened to have an appointment that day. After class I went stomping down the hall to go see my counsellor. “How the hell,” I demanded “am I supposed to be more loving?” …My counsellor gazed at me steadily and then replied: 

“The way you’re doing it now… Looking for the good and projecting warmth.”

“Oh” I said, relieved to hear this was something within my power.

… Happy new year!

Sean Crawford

By the walls of Mount Royal College,

January, 2018

Footnotes: 

~Next week’s post? It won’t be a “dark one,” I was only kidding!

No, I don’t want to write about Putin and the older Russians being still like communists inside their minds—did you hear their propaganda recently when they were banned from the Olympics for national doping? … Someone told me there’s a word in Russian for telling lies when your listener and you both know, and you both know that you both know, but you keep on propagating lying words from your mouth. Stupid communists.

No, let’s stick to comedy. Next week I’ll do part two of “Cheap hotels I have known” here in Alberta—and in that town sprawled across the border into Saskatchewan.

~Thinking of the benefits of college drama classes, I did an essay on Creative Movement, archived April 2012 

~Incidentally, if you like today’s sort of blog, I did a new years essay in late December, on the last day of 2011, about Affirmations. It’s archived. I could have done a light self-improvement piece for each the of other new years, too… but I forgot to even think of it.

Update, regarding Thought Two: I just found this quote in Brave (2018) by a sexual assault survivor, Rose McGowan (page 244) 
"The reason I know my own worth now is because I see all that worth in you. I see how much you are worth and how much you don't see in yourself. If I can do it, anyone can."

Learning to be Nice

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

She was one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily that less fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky star.

Louisa May Alcott

Or is it luck?...

One of my joys in life, as a middle aged man, is going up to Edmonton, the city I first knew in my sunny youth back when I served with the Canadian Airborne Regiment. (At Griesbach Barracks) There I check into a well-known very-cheap hotel for a few days, one with the toilets and showers down the hall: The sort of place where you both pay a key deposit and drop off your key every time you leave the building; a place where some of your poor fellow guests find their lives challenging, and in turn they present challenges to the front desk staff. Of course, they present few problems to a former soldier.

The last time I checked in and trudged up the stairs I overheard the staff going into the back and saying, “…comes up from Calgary, a nice guy.” Given some of the challenges the staff faced, “a nice guy” must have been a nice relief. No wonder the staff always remember me and sometimes tell me what shift they are working.

I started pondering “being nice” a month ago, after my weekly toastmasters meeting. (For public speaking) At my club we always start with a brief “introduction question.” The chairman for the night was a man my age who likes to lead bike tours. He asked us each to think, “What are you known for?” In his case, he was known for biking everywhere, even to work.

That night I answered, “Everyone knows I go to Tim Hortons,” (donut franchise) adding “At the place I go to before work on weekdays, they always bring me a cup one size larger than I pay for; at the place I go to before sunrise on weekends, they often start me off with a free coffee.” When someone said later she wanted to copy my donut shop success I realized that no, she couldn’t. Not unless she was known there for being nice. When once I ran into a couple of young servers at another town, away from their home, they were so pleased to see me, adding that “you are our favorite customer, we like how you leave magazines for us to read.” The magazine idea I learned from my brother Gord.

It was my brother Rob, an owner-operator of a delivery truck, who role modeled for me how a driver could be sociable with customers and loading dock crew. Come to think of it, everyone in my family is social: we’re Irish. (And British)

It’s obvious, surely, that “being sociable” is good for anyone in the business world, not just salespersons. As for traveling salesmen, I am intrigued by how back in the days when they were numerous, known as drummers, they were known for socializing with each other during evenings in the saloon, evenings of rousing good cheer. There was a subtle reason: Being unable to obtain peer status from the size of their houses and possessions back home, drummers earned their group’s respect through their ability to tell jokes and stories, to sing and converse… In more recent times, in contrast, we have that sympathetic Norman Rockwell painting of the lone salesman on his hotel bed playing solitaire.

In my brother’s case, I imagine being social could mean, say, one extra delivery trip per day because the various warehouse crews might be just a little quicker and more efficient for him. On the other hand, I don’t think he would get any free coffee at the docks or donut shops: There is a broad difference between “sociable” and “nice.” The term “sociable,” at first, makes me think narrowly of salesmen, pretty girls and partygoers. “Nice” is for everyone: something shy people and wallflowers could aspire to master. No doubt Simon Peter was loud and sociable—it was his quiet brother Andrew who was nice enough to find the boy with the loaves and fishes.

Can these traits be learned? I would hope so. Role modeling would work best, I think. As for specifically being social, there is lots of instruction available: I often see books and magazine articles such as “How to Talk to Anyone.” As for my concern of the week, ‘learning to be nice,’ I have only seen one book on this common sense trait, but one is all you need: I am thinking of a man who during the Great Depression ran a night school class on public speaking, back when no such book had ever been written: Dale Carnegie. From both his formal research and from his students came the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. If you haven’t read it yet—what are you waiting for?

One scene in the book is instructive. Dale “made the day” of an elevator operator by complimenting the man on his fine head of hair. When Dale reported this to his night class one of Dale’s students asked, “What did you want to get out of him?”

Dale exploded “What did I want to get—! … If your soul is so shriveled—! …” It’s hard to imagine any benefit the elevator operator could confer on Dale. Being nice is not for a clear and immediate gain—Call it a lifestyle choice.

When it comes to “trying too hard,” I think such error is more likely for “being sociable” than for “being nice.” A big difference between the two could be in how you set your intention: One is more ‘what do I want’, one is more ‘how can I help.’ Note the modifier “more.” Motives aren’t pure: We mortals will always have healthy measure of self-interest, more or less. None of us are saints—not me, no sir.

I guess my saintly friend Sue S. had thought she was doing the right thing. I first met Sue in a night class for people who already had jobs but were ready for a career change. (I was military, at the old Currie Barracks here in Calgary) A few years later we reconnected when I joined the university newspaper volunteer staff. Seeing her name and phone number in the staff listing I innocently gave her a call. I got as far as saying, “…Uh…Let’s see, uh—” (“—Hi Sean!”) when she happily guessed whom I was. Looking back, I suppose I was nice enough that she didn’t wonder if I was a stalker. Ah, those eager awkward student days. One day Sue confided to me how she was happy to have a new behavior: No longer was she entering each class after first putting a little smile on her face. I was happy for her.

Down the years I’ve had two other women say, “I’m not nice.” I didn’t get it. I never explored what they meant by that—we weren’t quite nice and intimate enough—but I think now, feminist style, they were rejecting any silly sex-role thing, just like Sue did.

For my part, it feels right to be a nice guy. On my good days, I like how my shyness is reduced. As I said in another essay, (Man and Girl, July 2013) I try to remember my mantra, “Because I am afraid to love, you are alone…” When I’m being less shy, because my mind is on being more helpful, I feel straight and healthy: Living as God intended.

My childhood hero, General Sir Baden-Powell, encouraged his Boy Scouts to do a good turn every day. He once wrote a note for someone as a take away at the end of an interview: (from memory) “Some think the secret of happiness is to receive, others know the secret is to give.” That’s it. An old man once said his secret was he tried to live so that no one came away feeling worse for having met him. That’s it too. Dale Carnegie wrote, “I am talking about a new way of life.” Yes.

It seems to me—Oh, how awful when I lapse into having a “dog in the manger” day! It seems to me, “learning to be nice” is a matter of setting my intention…  Everyone I meet during their working hours is, by definition, only there because they have to be—and I can help ease their path As for the ones who are not at work, well, everyone is fighting a silent battle, without flags or bands—and I can help.

I can extend fellowship, commiserate along the trail, and rejoice with them in pointing out the wonders of the world. It’s too easy for tired hikers to just look down at their feet. I find a side benefit for myself: By having a little focus, a little wondering, about what would brighten someone else’s day… I have to become aware of other people’s concerns… while in turn becoming increasingly aware of what brightens my own day. And awareness steers action.

I’m sure awareness will not automatically seep in, not without intention. I am reminded of a college assignment where we had to write a short piece with dialogue. Believe it or not, even though I had been reading for years, I had to reach under my bed for an old Louis L’Amour so that for the first time I could see how to write dialogue. A classmate, Joan, presumably had no fiction at home: She ended up inventing her own punctuation for dialogue! (Oh, it was crude!) Looking back, I wonder how many of us go through our years without ever setting an intention of seeing the concerns of others, without ever learning how to be nice. The golden rule can only take you as far as your knowledge goes. As Dale Carnegie said, “I am talking about a new way of life.”

I suppose setting one’s intention daily would be matched by checking yourself daily to see how your intention turned out.

Softly falls the light of day,

as the campfire fades away

Silently each Scout should ask,

‘have I done my daily task?’

In time, with concerted effort, a nice habit can become a new way of being… Such a soft, easy path to joy.

Sean Crawford

A civilian on the lone prairie

As robins nestle into shrubbery to escape the constant snowfall

April 2013

Footnotes:

~In Calgary only the Burns building, by the Olympic Plaza, still has elevator operators.

~I may have combined two separate Dale Carnegie stories—It’s been a decade since I read him last.