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Mr. Rogers Wasn't a Saint, He Was One of Us

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“Mr. Rogers Wasn’t a Saint, He Was One of Us”
by David Cain
“Last week, a friend and I went to see ‘Last Christmas.’ It was sold out, which turned out to be a stroke of holiday good luck. We saw the Mister Rogers biopic instead, and I think it made us kinder.
The filmmakers had recreated the show’s details perfectly. The busy piano theme that accompanies the trolley. The way Mr. Rogers changed shoes while he sang. The unexplained traffic light in his living room. The nostalgic effect was intense. Apparently I hadn’t seen much of ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ since I was its intended audience – a sensitive five-year-old, sitting cross-legged on our brown living room rug, bewildered by feelings.
At the time, I believed Mr. Rogers was an extremely kind man who talked directly to me and wanted me to be okay. Today, I think that’s exactly what he was trying to be, and what he was. By all accounts of those who knew Fred Rogers, he was really that kind.
The movie left us both wanting to be more like him, even by a little. By the time we left the parking lot we’d made a plan: a mutual commitment to practice metta, a Buddhist kindness practice we’re both familiar with, every day for the rest of 2019. The practice involves thinking of people you know, and silently expressing well-wishes to them. May you be safe. May you be free from suffering. These phrases aren’t said with the belief that they’ll magically protect or assist their target. Their purpose is to generate a state of deep caring and concern, making it more familiar and available to you in daily life.
It sounds lovey-dovey but it’s very practical. You’re simply strengthening one of your many emotional capacities by exercising it on purpose.

Kindness changes what interests the mind: It’s only Day 8 now, but we’re both noticing a difference in how we feel. My practice sessions usually generate a significant feeling of warmth towards others. This warmth doesn’t stay prominent throughout the day, but it does seem to lie closer to the surface, and emerges more often.
One-on-one interactions, even transactional ones, feel like they matter more. Moments at grocery tills and coffee counters unfold less by rote and more by feel, as though each one is a unique event. Experiences among crowds – driving, grocery shopping, queuing in a shop, having lunch at a restaurant – feel more collaborative and less competitive. Even passing strangers on the sidewalk comes with a bit of an “us” feeling.
None of this is too surprising. But I’m also noticing differences in areas I don’t think of when I think of kindness. I write more neatly. I move less abruptly. I place, rather than toss, my laundry in the machine. Listening effectively – following an anecdote or explanation, even on a Youtube video -seems easier. These little changes feel intuitive and effortless. I’m not trying to be kinder to my laundry. My body just wants to move more gently. I’m not listening better because it’s a kinder thing to do. I’m just more interested in understanding.
Something you feel, not something you do: I’ve always thought of kindness as a sort of moral category of behavior. You can do kind things or unkind things, and you should try to do kind things. But now – and this may come off as slightly crackpot -I’m thinking kindness is more like an innate human sense, which can be developed with practice. Maybe there’s some late-evolving background process in the brain, that understands how our words and movements collide with human feelings, and which shows up in consciousness as an intuition for protecting human well-being – regardless of whose it is.
When you’re guided through a moment by this sense, the eyes naturally soften, the heart naturally opens, and your movement becomes gentle and nonthreatening. After all, it doesn’t seem to matter who I direct my morning well-wishes to, the practice awakens the same healthy inclinations towards everyone. As I generate more warmth, kind and gentle patterns emerge in my mind and body. As the warmth wanes, the carelessness returns.
This “kindness sense” would be just one of many types of intuition that evolved to help humans survive. But wouldn’t it be an especially useful one for such a helplessly social creature, whose personal well-being depended on the well-being of its community? We would all have this capacity, to some degree. However, someone who’s spent a lifetime developing it, someone who exudes warmth in every movement, would strike us as almost otherworldly in their kindness.
It would be extremely moving to know or meet such a person. Or even see them on TV. We’d continue to be moved even after they’ve passed on, because they’re still making the rest of us kinder. Yet they were never more than a regular person – just unusually well-attuned to one particular human quality we’ve all known and felt.
Joanne Rogers has said she doesn’t like it when people refer to her husband as a saint, because that makes his level of kindness seem unattainable. “People invariably say, ‘Well, I can’t do that, but I sure do admire him. I would love to do it.’ Well, you can do it.”


Source: http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2019/12/mr-rogers-wasnt-saint-he-was-one-of-us.html



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