Quiet Determination

So it’s New Year and I am meant to think of my New Year’s Resolution. As one does.

There’s a number of changes I would like to see in my life. Have more time for more sports, get at least 8 hours a sleep every night, take frequent leisury walks with my friends, plant more plants, text less and make more phonecalls. I would like to spend more time with my loved ones. These actions would make good new year’s resolutions. These would certainly please me and make me more content with my life. On one level.

Because,

there is something going deeper than that. There is a pull that draws me ever closer to something I can not ignore. There is a force that keeps me awake some nights and I am left there trouled, pondering. It is a certainty so deep that it is no longer a wish, no longer a thought. It is as strong as it is patient, waiting to be named and acted upon.

It is a quiet determination that my life can only be full, if it is a kind life. And my life can only be full if it is shared, if it is part of a bigger web of kindness.

The pragmatist philosopher, Richart Rorty, wrote on Philosophy and Social Hope about the ways in which we can bring people together. It is not through invoking our common humanity, but through “a thousand little stitches”, using the numerous things we share. In his words, “The hope is to sew such groups together with a thousand little stitches – to invoke a thousand little commonalities between their members, rather than specify one great big one, their common humanity“. I am certain that the thread to sew these thousand little stitches is kindness.

My life can only be full if it is shared, if it is part of a bigger Web of Kindness.

Kindness is the “movement of compassion in practice”. Kindness is an action that benefits another person (or group of people), and it is perceived by that recipient as such. Kindness is deeply social, outwards-directed, quiet, humble and extremely disruptive. Kindness is quiet revolution.

If I want more time for my loved ones, sports, sleep, for taking walks, then I have to look for it outside my personal bounds. I cannot achieve any change by myself. Time is social. Life is social. If I am to lead a life I am content with, then that life must be a kind one, a social one, where others are content too.

So instead of having a new year’s resolution on self-help and personal improvements, I share my Quiet Determination to weave a Web of Kindness around me.