Monday, January 05, 2009

On Kindness


An intriguing essay on kindness - excerpted from their book by the same title - by a couple of writers, Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor.
Kindness - not sexuality, not violence, not money - has become our forbidden pleasure. In one sense kindness is always hazardous because it is based on a susceptibility to others, a capacity to identify with their pleasures and sufferings. Putting oneself in someone else's shoes, as the saying goes, can be very uncomfortable. But if the pleasures of kindness - like all the greatest human pleasures - are inherently perilous, they are none the less some of the most satisfying we possess.
Read all of Love Thy Neighbor.

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