Random Care

 I’m familiar with the precept of random acts of kindness, there is a whole ethos of positive psychology built around it. Like any habit, it takes conscious effort; and specific intent.  The sake of developing any habit is of course, purposeful liberation of the cognitive, intentional thinking processes; a kind of a paradox if you stop and ponder it for any given length of time. We want to encourage mindlessness?

Yet, as often as any topic that gets me thinking, this one began as an innocent question of

  “what is the happiest moment of your life?”

  Most people I know struggle with this due to the enormity of the task in recollecting the entirety of their life; never mind the survey to pluck out the happiest moments.  I’m pretty limited in that respect, so I usually don’t take the bait, with me then ending up shrugging my shoulders defaulting to some obscure visit to an Amusement park of my childhood.  What got to me was the premise of happiest moment.  In that, I had a parade of moments in which I could readily say; were common witnessing acts of kindness; more specifically care.  Not random, as in kindness to strangers, but as actions by someone I had not expected such soft and gentle consideration.  True, I can’t recite the exact event, only that I saw it, while being touched to the marrow.  

If I were to answer the question of happiest moment, it would be whenever I am present in the act of care.  I must admit, whenever I watch tapes of rescue from raging fires or roaring rivers, I’d get choked up by those heroic efforts by emergency responders.  They were risking everything to save someone they didn’t even know.  I suppose we could all muster up heroic defiance to possible harm for a loved one; oddly more so for a loved pet ~ perhaps because of our emotional contract within our hearts that we pledged to take care of them?  Be that as it may, the amplification of risking one’s life, for a stranger, really get’s to me the most.  Not only that, I don’t get numbed to the notion; I could witness that all day long and still be riveted by its appearance.  I use to call that being Noble.

  Now I’ve come to the point where I am more acute to what are happy moments; compared to what are just conjured up emotional attachment to situations or conditions. Some might say that’s a degree of being jaded, or cynical to the world.  I disagree; I would say that is discernment between what might often be subjective emotionalism, with true affinity to the greater quality of being human.  If I were one to command the elements of our physical existence I’d make it possible to bring something to our lips that produced that very unpredictable quality of care.  Yet, too, like butterflies, when one happens to show up it captures my attention.  I am totally devoted to watching its flight.  In a butterfly conservatory, my senses get numbed by so many of them; then darn if I don’t dismiss the spectacle as common.  Wouldn’t it be a joke on me to realize that the infrequency is what makes care so precious; in that you-need-bad-as-a-contrast in order to appreciate good sort of way.

  It’s a delight to savor; few would disagree.  Clearly I can’t spend the day suckling on the sweet candy sitting in the crystal dish.  But you know, when I slow down, I can linger on the character of what I have in my here and now.

And that, would be the instant-moment of care; the happiest I’ll ever be.