Articles

Rude to be Kind

/ boz bozeman / Leave a comment

I have a colleague who is one of the kindest people I know. She puts other people first all the time, and, as a teacher, puts her heart and soul into teaching and supporting students. Due to her incredibly positive nature, I feel like a monster criticizing her. 

But it was due to her that I developed my philosophy about how politeness becomes rudeness. It came about when she held the door for me at the entrance of the school. Of course, this is a polite thing to do. UNLESS the person is very far away. This induces the person to feel like they need to speed up, perhaps even run. Even if the person says, “You don’t need to run,” it’s hard not to feel like you are inconveniencing the person holding the door.  

A similar thing happens at four-way stop signs. Now, sometimes who should go next can be confusing: two or more people may get to the signs at almost the same moment. What I’m talking about is when someone clearly gets there first but starts to wave people through. I don’t think this is helpful. There is a clear pattern that works and should be followed. Breaking that pattern just confuses everyone, and cars buck forward and stop as each person tries to go. It looks like a bunch of wildebeest pretending to charge each other, and no one knows which one is dominant.  

I believe in kindness, and I am a polite person. I am so polite, indeed, that I know when kindness warps into rudeness.  

The Laughers

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Giggling begins. It starts with one student, but it spreads like a yawn. The laughers lose control, their bodies shaking and the sound taking on the edge of mania. Some put their heads down on their arms, shoulders pulsing even as they muffle the sound.  

I remember teenage emotions. The laughter, the heartache, the love, the tears. How much emotional intensity is due to newness, the personal inexperience with life, with feelings?  

Experience is a wonderful teacher, but it also wears down the extremes. Though I’m glad I no longer feel the intensity of hurt that came with the disappointments and tragedies of youth, experience also takes away some of that perfect joy.  

I still feel the edges of it sometimes. The laughter will linger, approaching that barrier, but there is too much control now. Is it about learning to let go, or remembering how to? 

Teaching young people does keep you young, partly because it reminds you of what being young is like. But while most experiences build our capacities, observing youth reminds you of how much is taken away by the years.  

We follow nature

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Last weekend we got about 4 inches of rain overnight. When I went on a hike, and saw what’s in this video, I thought “Funny how the water followed the path.”

Who follows who?

My mind immediately alerted me to a potential fallacy. A “which came first” idea presented itself. Isn’t it more likely that water made this path? Rain overflow creates little streams, especially in the spring. Some are freshets, have a relatively deep bed, and can run for months if its a wet season. Not great for a path.

But a lot of time there are washes for when a big storm overflows the system of ponds and streams and rivulets, and more water runs off. As water always does, it tends to gather and find a way to flow down. I’m thinking these are the path makers: yes they get wet, but only briefly, and dry fairly quickly, which means we can walk on them most of the time.

Humans are smart, and you can also say we’re either thrifty or a bit lazy. It is far easier to follow a path given to us by nature than to have to hack a new path through its bushes, trees and tangles.

So my new thought is: “Look how we follow that path of water.”

Ancient Shepherd

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There were so many stunning, ancient and wonderful sights that we saw on our recent trip to Malta. One that really stuck with me wasn’t an ancient building or beautiful nature scene: it was a shepherd. 

His face was as old and worn as the stone he walked on. He grazed the sheep on the Dingle Cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Ocean. The sheep chewed on the scraggly bushes amid the desert yellow of the pitted cliff.  

The only disappointment was his shepherd’s crook. I hoped for an ancient staff, a Wizard level stave. Instead, it was made of PVC tubing. The contrast with his ancient face was nearly hilarious.  

What really amazed me was not just the man. It’s the tradition. How many years does his family go back, or the traditions that were handed down to him? On an island that boasts one of the oldest Neolithic sites in the world, it’s possible we are talking about millenniums of shepherding. 

At one point, he spoke to the sheep and threw a stone near them. The sheep moved without hesitation. Perhaps this little trick is as old as the stone columns that made up the ancient temples.