Somewhere in his spare but wisdom-packed writing, Al Camus, the Fighting Frenchman from Oran, remarked that as he grew older he was more and more astonished by certain people's generosity.
Camus said he wasn't surprised by the nastiness folks perpetrated on each other; he kind of expected that.
What astonished him was the unsolicited kindnesses some folks showered upon him.
I've been thinking about Camus and random kindness since I returned from three weeks in Thailand.
I traveled there with a Thai friend and stayed with, first, one of her older sisters, then with her elderly parents and then with another of her sisters. If I understood her correctly, she has 12 siblings scattered around Thailand. I met many of them but lost count somewhere around seven or eight.
All of these folks, none of whom had ever met me before, treated me with more unsolicited warmth than I've felt since I was a mere child in the bosom of my long-dissolved, Irish-German immigrant family back in the Midwest.
As someone who everyone knows is a reflexive individualist (I was for the Monorail once I realized Big Business was against it, and for no other reason), I can't help but find it ironic that little Denny - the Rebel Without a Pause, as a friend labeled me 20 years ago - found so much contentment in Thailand, a culture where in general the individual takes a backseat to the group.
And it's not just me.
I was telling a Spanish friend of mine about my second day in Bangkok. Feeling a tiny bit homesick, I had walked three blocks through a raging torrent of tuk tuks, taxis and two-wheeled terrorists on motorbikes to the Thai version of 7-Eleven (yes, even there) and bought a can of Pepsi and a carton of Pringles. Comfort junkfood.
I sat in the alley outside the walkup where I was staying - me and 12 Thais in four rooms - and munched and swigged away.
The next day, after a walk, I returned to my room and noted two large cans of Pringle's and six cans of Pepsi sitting by my mattress. No note. Never was explained. Just a random kindness by folks I hardly knew.
I told my friend how I was carefully piling my underwear and sweat-drenched T-shirts (it's hot and humid in Thailand) next to my pillow until I found a laundromat. The day after the Pringles experience I returned from taking a couple of the family's little children wai-nam'ing (swimming) and discovered someone had washed my clothes - by hand; no washers and dryers where I was staying - and ironed it all dry, even the underwear. No note. No explanations.
My Madrilena friend teared up. She, like me and Camus, couldn't help but be moved by such simple, unsolicited, kindly concern for someone else's welfare.
Things like that kept happening to me while I was in Bangkok. And I couldn't help but notice that I started returning unsolicited favors. First in self-defense, and later because I was feeling genuinely close to these people I hadn't even known before I climbed onto EVA Air's Seattle-to-Bangkok-via-Taipei flight early on the morning of Oct. 11.
And you must understand, I didn't have anything these Thai folks wanted.
I didn't travel with much money. I didn't rent a car.
I just walked around half benumbed by the thumping, pulsating, teeming life that is Bangkok, trying to speak a little Thai and trying not to accidentally offend people with some unknown but often-seen-before Western boorishness.
I returned from Thailand determined to smile (an omnipresent feature of Thai street life) at any Seattle stranger who didn't look deranged (not just pretty women).
I've also decided to try to be nicer to folks inside my daily social orbit.
I've always been social. I've always had a large circle of friendly acquaintances, anchored by four or five close friends. But I'm talking here about being nice to folks I know for no reason.
Sort of the way the Thais treated me.
Last night (as I write this), Election Night, I listened to the political acrimony flying around the airwaves. To be honest, I was dealing with my own feelings of contempt for fellow citizens who seem to prefer the status quo - war, growing poverty, growing lack of health coverage for the growing segment of the population that qualifies as poverty-stricken - to any move, however tiny, toward change and social improvement. And I realized that attempting to be kind for no reason, "just because," to non-lovers and non-family members, was going to be even harder than smiling into the sea of indifferent faces skittering around atop the sodden bodies which are trapped once more in a wet, gray Seattle winter.
This kindness thing may take a while to get the hang of.
Bear with me, I'm working on it.[[In-content Ad]]
