140-11-01-2010
NOTE:  this is article 140 which has been placed ahead of article 139.  Upon reviewing 139, I liked the subject, and it will reappear, but I didn't like the tone.  (Also, it was 16 pages double spaced.)  It sounded like a rant and ... I don't think rants do much to promote human kindness. It is difficult sometimes, to see a problem and to write about it with clarity and without being ... hurtful or mean-spirited towards that problem and the people who created it: in this case, it was humanity.  I need to step back and gain perspective before submitting that piece to you.

Two Sizes of Human Kindness Footprints
By W. Owen Thornton

Here’s a new idea for human kindness.  I’m going to suggest that we leave two different sized foot prints from our lives: both must exist and neither can be avoided. 

The first footprint I’m talking about represents the environmental or the ecological one or perhaps it is simply the footprint of “stuff.”  The second is the footprint of people.  What I mean by the first footprint – that of “stuff” – are things that cannot make us happy on their own.  These are the things that may help lead us to happiness: career, owning things (toys – big screens, electronics, shoes) etc.  What I mean by people is self evident. 

Think of the two footprints of how we live our lives as this: when we die we will leave two distinct footprints in this world: the one that impacts the earth for good or ill (what kind of physical world will we leave behind) and the one that impacts people for good or ill (what kind of emotional, value-based, belief-based, ethical world will I have left behind).  So, when I pass away, I hope I will have lived my life in such a way so that the footprint that is measured in “stuff” will be a small as possible and the one measured by the people left behind will be as large as possible.

The Footprint left from Stuff
 

The footprint from stuff will be (should be) small for many reasons.  One, stuff alone does not make us happy.  There’s no point in putting a big stamp upon the earth from this perspective.  I’m beginning to realize that jealousy and greed … ogling, admiring and aspiring to have as much as the Joneses is what is principally wrong with our society.  Stuff, by that I mean career and the things I own and buy and use and throw away, these things are not as important as people.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  Maybe I shouldn’t even lump career into this category, but seeing as I’m lumping the entire world into two categories: people and everything else, career has to go somewhere.

Career is important because it gives meaning for our lives and because it helps express who we are and what we desire to contribute to the world.  But often career isn’t about the right things.  Career should be important for the number of people that we can serve … the qualities that we can help bring to the world through our career choices that makes as many lives as possible better.  But I don’t think that’s what we think about most when we think about career.  We think about pay raises, and stress, and ladder climbing and passing the buck and going home early and pointing fingers and finding blame for screw-ups.  And we worry about having enough to support ourselves and our families and having nice Christmases: even when we know that Christmases are not about stuff but about a different thing: spiritual and religious meaning.  Okay.  Admittedly, if I’m going to deal with career, I need to think some more about this entire footprint idea.  But a beginning, I think, is suggesting that if we change our focus on career from what we do to who we serve, we place more emphasis into the people category.

Another reason the stuff footprint should be small is that the less stuff we have, the less damage we ourselves have contributed to the destruction of the environment.  Say I’m a DVD collector.  More DVDs means buying shelving units and making plastic DVD cases out of petroleum products, and using energy to watch them.  These are the same DVD packages that many of us will watch once in our lives (sometimes we’ll never find time to watch them) and then they will become collectors of dust and they will end up in a dump somewhere.  And it is these DVD cases that we work so hard for, so that we can posses them.  And in the process of working hard we work long hours, past our kids’ bedtimes so that they don’t see us or hear us read stories or get important things from us, like learning lessons that people are always more important than stuff.

Now I picked DVDs here but it could have been anything.  Why live in 2,000 square foot homes (or larger) with families of four when families of six in the 1950, lived in 1,000 square foot bungalows?  We live in and use energy to heat 2,000 square foot homes because kids cannot go outside and play for at least two very good reasons.  One they require 24/7 attention for fear that they will be harmed or kidnapped.  Oh come one!  You have to agree with me here, right?  I’m 48.  We played outside on our own until it was time for dinner.  Today, if a kid could find enough green space to play in and should anything befall them, the first thing we would say is, “What were the parents doing?  Where were they that the child could suffer any harm?”  So kids stay home and the second reason we need large houses is because we don’t pay attention to people: rather we pay attention to stuff.  We don’t play board games in the family room (admittedly a “stuff” item, but one that brings people together) after a family meal together.  Rather everyone needs their own screen (computer or TV – and each day they get larger and draw more power to operate them) in their own private room so that they can entertain themselves individually in vast spaces of isolation.  And the problem with how we’re living is that people are excluded and stuff is required to make this kind of life work.  The footprints that we’re leaving behind are contrary to the size we should be leaving.  Our “stuff” footprints are huge, and our people footprints are way too small.

People Footprints
 

When I die I want my ecological or my stuff footprint to be close to invisible.  If people tried to find me from this perspective of life, I would want them to have to search VERY hard for my footprint.  But when it comes to people … I want to impact as many people in as positive a manner as I possibly can.  Should I die before the majority of my peers, I want to have the biggest funeral in the world.  I want hundreds of people to cry because they don’t know what they are going to do without me. 

Okay.  That sounds perverse like I’m into hero worship or it may sound narcissistic but that’s not what I mean.  I believe why we grieve is that we take the best parts of people up into us.  Grieving then, is about letting those parts go.  So, I want to be such a person of human kindness, a person who has been so kind to so many that there is a great deal of me inside a great many people such that they will know how much I impacted their own world for the better.  I want to be that kind of person for so many people.  I don’t wish them the harm of grieving my loss.  What I’m really wishing for them is the betterment of their lives through me while I’m alive: and in the process of doing that, they will have taken a lot of me up into them … and upon my death, there will be a lot of me they will have to let go.  I see this as a vast net gain for all of them, if I but practice the right kind of human kindness throughout my life.

I believe my acts of human kindness in this regard are to make meaningful connections with as many people I can.  But I know that I cannot be all things to all people either.  There are some people I will simply rub the wrong way.  I won’t be their cup of tea.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.  I have met a number of erstwhile young people at university these past few years.  Those who have taken special time to have lunch with me or debate questions from class, I have made a special point to reach out towards them in as meaningful a way as I can.  I have invited them all to my home at least once for dinner.  I have come to realize that my four years as a mature student are hugely precious to me and part of the reason why it has meant so much is because of the tremendous young people I have met along the way. 

I know that these days are escaping me quickly.  Soon, if all things work out I’ll be in graduate school and everything will be different.  I won’t have opportunity to meaningfully connect with as many people as I once did.  I won’t see these young people ever again as they graduate and move around the country, no, the world, seeking the lives and vocations they so richly deserve.  And I miss those who have gone before, just as I cherish the ones I have connected with this year.  So I have endeavoured to savour the moments I can with them, in a busy world where “stuff” footprints seem to consume so much of our time and where people footprints seem to take up so little of our time.

So, I ask you this.  If life is like a walk in the snow and one footprint represents the stuff you leave behind and the other footprint represents the depth and number of relationships you have left behind, what will your foot-path look like?  Will your path look like two even footprints?  Will the footprint of stuff be large and the one representing people and your relationships be small?  Human kindness, I think, dictates that one footprint looks exceedingly small (stuff-print), while the other looks like a massive creature has just passed through this world (people-print).  Hey, it’s just something to consider!