does it help?

 I don't even know. One thing I feel, as I look around at the world - and the news, and prominent people - is that there seems to be an increase in selfishness and even cruelty. And in a lot of cases, it feels like it's almost cruelty for cruelty's sake. (Several commentators have noted the return of "the r-word" (which was originally used to refer to someone with intellectual challenges)). 

Hearing it's coming back is a bit like a smack in the mouth to me. 

I've talked about being a bullied kid. I distinctly remember in relatively-early grade school (like: second grade, so that's what, seven? Seven year old were doing this to each other) being called that word, and someone yelling it behind me in the hall and when I flinched (because they yelled), "Look, it knows its name!"

Yeah, this is why I have trust issues.

Anyway, I look at the increasing meanness and I want to fight back. I mean, I can't literally fight and I'm too much of a pacifist to want to physically fight. But maybe symbolically I can fight back against the rising dark?

One thing that makes me feel good is being "useful" in small ways, or trying to make someone else's day better. 

Today, when my colleague had a bunch of plant specimens borrowed from the greenhouse for her lab (greenhouse is across campus; it's the horticulturalist's domain). So I helped her carry them down to the van to take them back. I didn't have to, but I wanted to. (Well, to be fair - I was also grading and needed a short break).

But I like doing things like that; I feel useful and it does make someone's day better.

I also had a student e-mail me; the short and non-identifiable summary is they had a family member pass away and the funeral is coming up, they apologized for missing class for it. I told them that my policy is that funerals count as excused absences and that they were welcome to come in if any of the material they missed (they have the textbook) was unclear to them. But I did start off by saying I was sorry for their loss. Because it doesn't cost me anything to do that, and maybe it makes the student's day a little less difficult 

But I don't know. I don't know if that helps or fixes anything. A lot of the time it feels like a drop in the ocean, that it's a tiny thing that gets erased by all the worse things. And a lot of times I wonder if I'm a chump or a patsy for trying to be kind; it certainly does seem in our society now if you try to be kind you may get taken advantage of. 

It's so hard. Life seems harder now. It's hard to navigate the world; it's really been hard since COVID. And I don't always know what to do.