Kindness: The Last Refuge of the Human Spirit

by Roger B. Rueda

Kindness. A word so simple, so universally lauded, yet so pitifully rare in practice. It is the virtue that politicians fake, salesmen exploit, and the naive mistake for weakness. But Naomi Shihab Nye, in her devastatingly beautiful poem Kindness, tells us an uncomfortable truth: before you can understand kindness, you must first be gutted by loss.

And that is where humanity fails. We live in a world of convenience, where empathy is as disposable as single-use plastics. We avoid discomfort like a corrupt official dodging an indictment. We insulate ourselves from pain, refusing to acknowledge the desolation of others—until, inevitably, life brings us to our knees.

Nye’s poem is not some saccharine Hallmark sermon. It is a diagnosis. She tells us that kindness is not something you can learn from a self-help book or an inspirational TED Talk. It is forged in sorrow, hammered in the furnace of loss, and tempered by the realization that you, too, are fragile, fleeting, and wholly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.

Take a moment to absorb that. Before you know kindness, you must lose things. You must feel the future dissolve in an instant, your plans reduced to ash. You must be that traveler, riding endlessly on a bus, uncertain if the journey will ever end, staring blankly at a world that moves on without you.

You must look at the dead man by the side of the road and see yourself in him. This, perhaps, is the most brutal revelation: kindness is not born out of privilege, but out of the knowledge that you are not immune to tragedy.

And yet, despite its painful origins, kindness is the only thing that makes sense anymore. Once you have seen the cloth of sorrow, woven with the suffering of all mankind, what else is there to do but be kind? When everything else has failed—governments, ideologies, economies—it is only kindness that will tie your shoes, raise its head from the crowd, and walk beside you like a friend.

But let us be honest. Kindness is not glamorous. It is not the fiery spectacle of revolutions or the grandstanding of power-hungry demagogues. It is quiet. It is the teacher who buys her student lunch because she knows he hasn’t eaten. The nurse who works a double shift because there’s no one to cover for her. The stranger who holds the elevator for you even when they’re in a rush.

It does not demand recognition. It is not performative. It does not wait for applause. It simply exists, moving through the world like an invisible force, refusing to let humanity collapse under its own weight.

So, to the skeptics and cynics who scoff at kindness as weakness, I say this: It takes no strength to be cruel. Any fool can wield a whip. But to be kind in a world built on indifference? That takes true power.

And if we must go through sorrow, if we must be stripped of our pretensions and reminded of our shared mortality, then let us at least emerge from the wreckage armed with kindness. For in the end, when history has erased our names and time has reduced our ambitions to dust, it is only kindness that remains—the last refuge of the human spirit.

 Kindness

a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

***

Kabuot

binalaybay ni Naomi Shihab Nye

ginlubad ni Roger B. Rueda

Bag-o mo mabal-an kung ano gid ang matuod nga kabuot

kinahanglan mo nga madulaan sang mga butang,

mabatyagan nga ang buwas nagakatunaw sing hinali

kasubong sang asin sa naglas-ay nga sabaw.

Ano ang ginkaptan sang imo kamot,

ano ang gin-isip kag mahinalungon mo nga ginkinot,

tanan ini kinahanglan nga magpalayo para mabal-an mo

kun ano kasubo ang kalaparon

sa tunga sang mga kahilitan sang kabuot.

Kun paano ka magsakay nga magsakay

nga sa hunahuna mo indi magdulog ang bus tubtub sa katubtuban,

ang mga sumalakay nagakaon sang mais kag manok

nagalantaw sa gwa sang bintana sing dalayon.

Bago mo mabal-an ang kalolo nga kasangkul sang kabuot

kinahanglan mo nga magpanglugayaw kun sa diin ang Bombay nga nagasuksok sang puti nga poncho

nagahayang sa kilid sang dalan.

Kinahanglan mo nga mahangpan nga pwede ikaw ini

nga sia isa man katinuga

nga nagapanglakaton sa tunga sang gab-i kaupod ang katuyoan

kag bunayag nga ginhawa nga nagabuhi sa iya.

Bag-o mo mabal-an nga ang kabuot pinakamadalom nga butang sa alibutud

kinahanglan mo mabal-an nga ang kasubo iba nga pinakamadalom nga bagay.

Kinahanglan mo magbugtaw kaupod ang kasubo.

Kinahanglan mo nga estoryahon ini tubtub madakop

sang imo tingug ang hilo sang mga kasubo

kag mahangpan mo ang kadakuon sang henero.

Amo palang ina mangin mapuslanon ang kabuot,

kabuot lang ang nagahigot sang imo sapatos

kag nagapagwa sa imo sa adlaw para maghulog sang mga sulat kag magbakal sang tinapay,

kabuot lang ang mag-alsa sang iya ulo

sa sinumbali sang kalibutan kag maghambal

ako ang imo ginapangita,

kag dayon maupod sa imo sa tanan nga hilit

nga daw isa ka landong ukon abyan.

All reactions:

10Gavi Delso, Rncs G Grdse and 8 others

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