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KINDLY DEFEATS SNARKY BY A HAIR’S BREADTH
It’s confusing some days, being human.
One moment I’m hugging my family and trying to help out by listening carefully. Another moment, I’m thinking something snarky about a dismissive associate. One moment, I’m being critical of the very person I admire. Next moment, I’m feeling sympathy for the dismissive character, trying my best to see things from his point of view.
Throughout my time on Planet Nine, I’m never of one opinion, one attitude. My observations and proclivities hop around, probably dependent upon how comfortable I feel about myself. Probably just a symptom of mishmashed DNA.
Jekyll one time, Hyde the next.
I think about Reverend Harry Powell’s right hand of LOVE versus his left hand of HATE.
I ponder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s idea of Interrelatedness, his belief that we are all related, the good, the bad, the indifferent…and that we get along much better when we decide to embrace.
I can’t get Atticus Finch’s words out of my kindly-but-snarky mind, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Am I naughty and nice all rolled up into a prickly bale? Am I more nice than naughty?
As Bryan Stevenson tries to teach us, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” To paraphrase, each of us is more than the best thing we’ve ever done. We are just plain complicated and contradictory.
My only self-salvation is to try to end each day hoping the good things I’ve accomplished outnumber the snarky things that creep about.
Maybe I should tattoo KINDLY on my right hand, SNARKY on my left, as a constant reminder that I feel better about myself and you and the world itself each time kindly defeats snarky by at least a hair’s breadth
© 2017 A.D. by Jim Reed