ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this. you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me.
humans are fucking terrible and this awful world we live in will fucking kill you but if you are kind, if you are brave and clever and try really hard, you can defy it. you can impose on this bleak and monstrous structure something beautiful. even if it’s temporary. even if it doesn’t heal anything inside you that’s been hurt.
i’m gonna sleep and i’m gonna wake up and i swear by everything in this deadly horrible universe i’m gonna make someone happy.
i’ve seen a number of comments and tags where people feel that they must swallow or repress their anger in order to engage in kindness. that is not at all what i am recommending here. radical kindness is an expression of anger. it is not passive. it is not repressive. it does not require you, in any way, to forgive those that have fucked you up. it does not require you to be quiet.
it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more.
have a cookie.
i will say this again: we are all going to die. the universe is enormous and almost entirely empty. to be kind to each other is the most incredible act of defiance against the dark that i can imagine.
I know I’m terrible for adding my two cents to posts like this, but I really do think it’s worth adding that one of the really important and cathartic ways in which you can combat pain and anger is being kind to yourself.
And kindness, like Roach says, doesn’t mean simple ‘niceness’. It’s kind to understand that when people are acting badly it’s from a place of their own hurt and fear. It doesn’t make it OK. It doesn’t mean you have to be nice to them because they have issues. It means you’re letting go of a view of the universe where everyone is acting to affect you personally and some people are just not good enough at processing their own shit to know you right now. You don’t owe them support but operating with generous understanding will help you feel much better than stewing.
(And I can’t stress enough, that applies to you too. Be kind to yourself. Forgive, understand, nurture).
Reacting with kindness to hurtful, cruel and disregarding behaviour doesn’t mean passive-aggressively contiuing to be nice and attentive etc to the person that hurt you. It’s refusing to meet bad behaviour with bad behaviour. It’s taking that energy of hurt and anger and rather than using it to devise suitable punishments or retorts, using it to make someone who DOES deserve it happy.
Look at Terry Pratchett. He turned anger into kindness: he worked his fury at an unjust world into works of fiction that is not only literature of the first order, but have comforted and inspired millions.
burn your anger in a bonfire that warms the cold
burn your hatred in a torch to light up the night
burn your pain in a fire that roars out defiance
burn the beacon of your hurts
and grit your teeth
and plant your feet
and hold out your hands
and say to the darkness
I am here, and you will not have me.
Steel Phoenix Studios 