Failures of Kindness

As of Tuesday, April 19th, the University of Central Arkansas MFA in Creative Writing class delivered the final public reading of their degree.  TJ Heffers, Audrey Heffers, and Jasmine Jobe all read, and it was delightful event, opened by professor Stephanie Vanderslice, PhD.

Dr. Vanderslice is a thoughtful professor who cares deeply for her students, and her speech opened with a segment from the writer George Saunders in which he discussed "failures of kindness."  Of all the messages that could have been passed on to future generations of writers, these were the things that George Saunders, during his convocation speech at Syracuse University, and Dr. Vanderslice, head of the Creative Writing program at the University of Central Arkansas chose to communicate.

I don't regret things.  I make a point of turning every event into a learning experience, at the very least, so that I can avoid the taint of regret.  It's something that I've made a point of from a very young age, brazen and unashamed despite my shyness, that I would rather regret what I have done than regret what I have not done.  So I've been awkward.  I've kissed people I shouldn't have kissed.  I've expressed feelings that were gauche.  I've been embarrassed, and I've breezed through embarrassment and gave a middle finger to shame.

(It did help that, for the most of this period, I was morbidly depressed and didn't care what happened.  Bravery is much easier when you don't mind the results of your actions.)

But the one matter that I was unable, alchemist like, to convert to gold, was that of failures of kindness.  Failures to stand up for those I knew needed a voice.  Failures to comfort those in pain.  Failures to reach out and attempt connection with my fellow man.  Usually for reasons so vapid and banal as shyness or feeling that my actions were inappropriate.

Let's call it what it was:  cowardice.

And so, cowardice stood between me and my fellow man.  Cowardice prevented me from reaching across some divide and offering succor.  Cowardice enabled the loneliness of one human being.

Dr. Vanderslice's piece reminded me of a scene from American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which I assume most of anyone who's reading this blog must have read.  The scene in question is when Shadow, the protagonist, finds himself on the airplane with Wednesday, his boss who turns out to be (no surprise) an American equivalent of the Norse god Odin.  In a quiet moment toward the end of their conversation, Shadow considers Wednesday and thinks how tired he looks and wishes to touch Wednesday's hand.  Without a doubt, he knows that it wouldn't change anything that happens later, but in that quiet moment between them, he wishes that he'd touched Wednesday's hand.

Wednesday is a god.  Shadow is a man.  Again, without a doubt, it wouldn't have changed anything that happened later in the story.  And yes, it probably would have embarrassed Shadow in the moment if he'd expressed that tenderness...but you know what?  It doesn't fucking matter.  Even if Wednesday is a god... even if Shadow is a man (or demigod)... even if we are all fragile, imperfect beings, or perhaps because of that, we are all, each and every single one of us, alone.  We are alone in the darkness of infinity, islands of hurt, sealed off in our own skins from each other.  We each seek the communion of man.  The only comfort we have are those moments when we try, try imperfectly to reach across the divide to another island of skin.  That is the lamp that flares in the night.  We must at least try to reach other.

Because, if we don't at least try, what's the point?

In my opinion, that is worth shame, that is worth awkwardness.  That is worth all the averted glances of a million peers.  If I can bridge that divide, even for one moment of a red eye flight across all the fly over states, to touch someone's hand and let them know that they're not alone in their loneliness, then I have accomplished my purpose as a human being.