Although we leave for France today, I had intended to write something yesterday, come what may. The habit has become strong since I started these regular posts again.
Missing a week feels not only like a dereliction of duty, but the interruption of a natural rhythm. However, I was eventually defeated by a combination of packing and a long and inopportune but interesting phone call.
When I began this blog, now seventeen years ago, I was working mostly as a writer in the world of business. I named it A Few Kind Words after hearing someone make the point that our modern idea of kindness arises from the more ancient concept of kinship.
We need to be kind to one another because we are all of the same, human, kind. And the language of business, it seemed, was not kind. It was impersonal and alienating. It lacked empathy.
Today, empathy seems in short supply wherever you look, from the White House to the streets of Belfast. So much so that when I heard this from an American author on a podcast the other day, it struck a loud chord:
‘We’re living in a world where just to be a decent person is like an act of protest.’
As we drive from Scotland to south-west France over the next few days, I’ll have plenty of time to reflect on what it means to be a decent person, and how that could, as an act of protest, make a difference.
I wonder what it means to you?
A Few Kind Words 