Kindness is a social activity. When one does something nice
for someone else, it is not necessarily a gift in the monetary sense. Money
encourages us to think: If I give, I have less, and the other owes me more.
This is a binding capitalistic mentality.
Kindness, such as washing the dishes to suit another person’s
aesthetic preferences, (as opposed to washing the dishes to fulfill one’s own
needs or impulses) is thus entering into a relationship with another.
Yet individuation necessitates a natural and healthy, if not
essential (although of course it IS essential) abstinence from excessive
attachment to others. In this sense, one is not consistently Kind, but one
simply follows one’s own Nature. This is what is meant by the Taoist expression
that when the Way of Nature lost, there came talk of kindness towards others.
Kindness is not natural but socialized. Yet following one’s own Nature is far
from depraved. It is unconditioned, but our Western stigma against allowing
things to follow their natural process is inflated. Sooner or later, one’s own
aesthetic preferences would ensure that the dishes be washed. Yet the
sociological dimension would be absent, and no record would be kept of the “favour”.
Dm.A.A.
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