7/7

I've just realised 7/7 is in fact a whole. The completion of a picture. I wish I could feel more of a completeness about my life at present, but the more I accumulate, the more that seems to slip through my fingers. 

In terms of the things I like, I feel I have covered most bases. Transport to sustenance. Perhaps I can choose something that is important to me, something I do my best to show to whomever, whenever. Mrs Trefusis mentioned me and manners, something about which I can be very particular. Example: I simply loathe people who are rubbish at introductions. It really is too awful, I have no mechanism to deal with the awkwardness of being left to the wayside as a friend chatters on without making any attempt to introduce one to tuther. Are you specifically not introducing me? Or are you simply blind to the fact we are as Adam to one another? Either way, for some reason, it bothers me.

As, yet again, I have descended into writing about that which I don't like, I'd better move on quick smart. There is a vague connection, because what I wish to say I do like is kindness. I think kindness is so very important, it costs absolutely nothing and can greatly affect a person's day to day existence. I have been extraordinarily lucky in that I have known some of the kindest people imaginable. London, one of the world's great metropoles, is not somewhere I necessarily expected to discover it. The vastness of everything and, in particular, the number of people does not necessarily engender a sense of abounding kindness. But it is there that I was the beneficiary of some wonderfully good turns - extra streams of income when they were invaluable; hot, home-cooked meals when they were so very welcome; friendship in some low times and even, in moments of utter desperation, a roof over my head.

Kindness can take many various forms, be it a word, an act, a gesture, even an offer. It can be conscious or sub-conscious. In a world of increasing disenfranchisement, hedonism, selfishness, chicanery and one-upmanship, I think it is important to reflect on what it is to be human, what humanity entails. To me, one of our greatest achievements as a species was developing a conscience, rising above natural selection, empathy and kindness. Yet the downside of our developed thought has been to allow ourselves to divide - be it politically, racially, religiously, by gender, sexuality, background, hair colour, eye colour - and hate. And I'm in no way suggesting I'm above the negativity, I am often guilty of wishing ill on complete strangers. Bus drivers and club bouncers in particular.

However, what I hope by writing this is that it will serve as a reminder to myself, and to anybody else who should stumble across it for that matter,  to be better. It costs absolutely nothing to smile. To be kind, in its truest form, can make all the difference between somebody having a good and a bad day. I know on the very greyest and rainiest of days we feel far from any sense of joy, so therefore to share whatever remnants within there are seems ridiculous. But to do so is to multiply it tenfold. I promise. I spent yesterday at the funeral of a good friend's father. He had committed suicide out of depression, quite tragic. Certainly, the sense from the readings was that this was an incredibly kind, honest, decent and noble person, who had been overwhelmed by the horridness of the world around him. What was so touching, despite the grief, was the outpouring of kindness the local community showed this family, and I am convinced that this support was invaluable to them.

Our world can be a desperately dark place at times. It is within all of us to find that metaphorical sunshine, and to perhaps re-assess how we treat our fellow human beings. I don't mean to sound like the resurrection of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but I do believe we can all, even in the very smallest of ways, collectively make our human experience just that little bit happier.

"Give all to love; obey thy heart." 
Ralph Waldo Emerson