September 15, 2007
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Kindness
In a story I was reading recently the following quotes are to be found:
“.. it’s better to trust people than to doubt them. She said that people aren’t born with kind hearts. When we’re born all we have are desires for food and material things. Selfish instincts I guess. But she said that kindness is something that grows inside of each person’s body… but it’s up to us to nurture that kindness in our hearts. That’s why kindness is different for every person.”
“We’re all born with selfish desires so we can all relate to those feelings in others. But kindness is something made individually by each person… so it’s easy to misunderstand when others are trying to be kind to you.”
This is from the manga Fruits Basket which I first experienced in anime form years ago and promptly completely forgot. Now when reading the manga I remember how much I like the story and for the first time I realize why. It’s because of the underlying philosophical bent of the story. Even if the philosophy is way too sweat and optimistic to be the whole truth, it’s nice to read.
The question is, if we are all born without kindness, where does the ‘seed’ that eventually grows into kindness come from? Are we born at least with that seed of kindness, or does that seed come from the society in which we interact. Indeed perhaps we only strive to be kind for selfish reasons, to meet the expectations of the society. I’d like to think that isn’t true, but who really knows?
