I have thought a lot about kindness recently. It started when reading a fiction book and the main character explains what she thinks the difference between kindness and niceness is. The fictional character (brought to life by Sangu Mandanna) suggests that “Niceness is good manners... Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.” People can be nice, kind, or both. The character says both is great, but if only one, she’d prefer kindness. In addition to kindness being what happens when no one’s looking, kindness withstands when you have differences from people you are interacting with. Whereas with niceness, the niceness typically disappears when the nice person interacts with someone who is different from them. Being able to interact with people who are different from us is important in all aspects of life. For me, this includes my work in forestry and natural resources. We all come from different backgrounds, have different opinions, and different priorities. Yet we all share our environment. My thought journey on kindness continued with several strangers showing me kindness towards the end of my PhD program that made completing my PhD that much sweeter. First, for my dissertation defense my spouse and I took an Uber to campus and in conversation it came up that the driver was taking us to my dissertation defense (basically a three-hour final exam). As a fellow graduate student himself, he immediately understood the importance of this event and kindly took us right to the door of my department building. As we were getting out he said, “I want to wish you luck, but I don’t think that is the right sentiment. So go amaze them.” His words brought the biggest smile, helped me go into my defense with confidence, and are still with me three months after my defense. Then, after graduation we were flying inter-island and I had many lei from friends and family. The flight attendants asked why, and my spouse quickly said it’s because she’s a newly graduated doctor. To which, the flight attendants excitedly congratulated me, and one attendant even went on the intercom to announce my graduation to the whole plane. He said “There’s a new doctor on board! A tree doctor, so ask her your tree questions!”. Later he brought our section on the plane complimentary champagne and we all toasted at ~14,000 feet. Post dissertation defense tree hug. These two strangers brought so much joy to my and my family’s lives during a stressful time of completing/defending/revising/depositing my dissertation, graduating, moving from Hawaiʻi to California for my next chapter, finding a home for a foster dog, the list goes on. I am very appreciative of the generosity and kindess received from everyone in my life including people I just met. It left me with hope for humanity and a stronger sense of a shared community. To bring this back to Braiding Sweegrass, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about species loneliness as “a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. As our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors.” Humans are social beings, and I will argue our social nature is not just being social with other humans, but also being social with other beings, with nature, with our full ʻohana. The kindness of these strangers makes me feel like I can call out of my neighbords. It makes me feel less alone. All of this to say...let's be kind. So much life, kindness, and community at Kapiʻolani Park, Oʻahu.
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AuthorI started this blog as part of my Botany In Action Fellowship through Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Archives
June 2023
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