Harmless

Who would not agree that it is probably a poor personal policy to be intentionally offensive? Or there is some profit in annoying or worrying people? What reasonable person would not agree a disposition to not cause any physical or mental damage is laudable? The term, I speak of is harmlessness.  It holds a precious treasured place for me. Yet its qualities can be difficult to distinguish and as different  as diamonds are to zirconium.

  I have a friend who is, by all measure, harmless.  I’ve often admired, and on occasion scoffed as naïve, her perceptions on life.  Yet as the years continue to make demands and challenges to each of us, I am evermore convinced by her choices that I’ve found that very diamond quality of character in her.  I am not fooling myself either with any cynical assessments of her intelligence or savvy.  Nor am I saying everything always works out for her, because in doesn’t. After all, choices have consequences and often she doesn’t get what she wants.  But in saying that I must also add, she doesn’t get what she wants because what she wants goes far beyond personal gain or comfort; mostly she wants others to be happy. She wants it so deeply that it’s sought at her expense; her peace of mind and certainly, at the cost of many of her tears.  I’ve read sacred texts, ancient philosophical observations, and psychological studies that all point towards the benefits of being harmless; yet very few pundits can speak clearly on how to incorporate it into a jaded and skeptical world we must inhabit.

   Those precious few who are by nature, harmless, I think are so because they resist the need to judge; they forgo assuming others motives; they decline predicting others desires.  Once the point of departure has been reached; all the trials and tribulations of making sense of the world, just drops away.  If anything, my harmless companions can’t fathom why others would choose to be anything else but like them.

  I’ve come to the idea that perhaps I see harmless most often in those who have not been affected by depraved and degrading ways.  I suppose I could have begun with writing about virtues and vices and go from there; but I found my way to harmless by chance.  And this remains the beauty and the indestructible character of harmlessness; just as the diamond is indestructible by anything on the planet, so I believe that harmless is the armor of love.  And here’s the real gift of this process of consideration. 

It’s no armor at all. 

   Armor is designed to deflect, to protect from assault.  When there is no need to defend what is left but acceptance?  Harmless is the actuality of being.  It makes no demands; it has nothing to prove; or requires no-thing.  It invites all things to be present, even anger…even violence, until that energy is spent; when the fury is exhausted, what remains is allowance. 

I am grateful for the ability to distill this, and most of all to see its redeeming quality in those who decided to include me in their lives.  Then that reminds me of a quote from one of my all time favorite books: The Little Prince, a novella by Antonie de Saint-Exupery; “One sees clearly only with the heart.  

What is essential is invisible to the eye”