Thuggin'...and Kindness

I'm going to start this post with a couple of short, clear messages I recieved from the Divine.

Keep giving all I have to all that is Kindness is not obsolete

I promise these will make more sense as we go...

A little prefacing first.

The environment I come from conditions you to devalue kindness. Lest you make yourself ripe to get got by someone with predatory intentions. At this point in my life I have come to call this general approach to things Thuggin'.

Of course the predominant influence on my use of the word is the ancestor Tupac, who almost single-handedly redefined the idea itself. We know everything Pac embodied. Simply though, I've come to define it this way for myself: Don't expect kindness. The logic is that if you don't expect, anticipate or (in some extreme cases) feel you don't even deserve kindness you won't be disappointed or heartbroken at the nonexistence of it. Yep, that's Thuggin' in a nut shell. Moving through the world emotionlessly and treating compassion as a myth. You could argue that the logic is a bit skewed but I can't front, this way of living was vital to my survival at one point. But, like all modes of being, this is subject to evolution and I am evolving beyond the fear of vulnerability. Let's be real, that is what illicits emotionlessness and turns giving into a burden.

This points to the importance of the messages I lead this post off with and gives even greater significance to what actually nudged me to create this post in the first place

Recently, there have been three distinct kindness related experiences that showed me that kindness is alive and well and that the universe implores us to give...despite our conditioning.

So...two happened in one day...essentially in the same moment. Trippy lol.

I had just left my unofficial first day at my new job. I was their briefly just to fill out paperwork but from the time I got there to the time I left all my soon to be coworkers did was dish and gossip. I kept my guard up and ignored the toxic environment...something I'm used to doing. I left from there and got some food from a nearby restaurant before I went to wait to catch a bus home. I was hungry so I started eating at the bus stop. There was this young dude there who was waiting as well. He kept trying to start a conversation with me. In thug mode, guard up, I ignored him. He started asking me for some of my food (which I found weird as hell and hilarious). Still, thuggin', I kept responses short and ignored him mainly.

Then something strange happened, randomly I asked myself this: Why be this way? What does it accomplish?

I literally could not find one good reason to be in this largely negative mode.

As it turned out the restaurant had given me a free side, a fish taco, that I wasn't going to eat.

I offered it to him. I don't know what his situation was but he accepted it and was super grateful.

Then not 10 minutes later...no joke...a elderly Asian woman approaches the bus stop. Naturally, I assume she is catching the bus too. But she started gesturing toward me and the young dude.

Like she needed something. She obviously didn't speak much English, but I was able to make out the word "help". I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw an Asian Cafe. After a bit of deciphering I realized she just needed help crossing the street to get to this cafe (Is this not trippy?). She was trying to cross in the middle of the street, during pretty busy early afternoon traffic.

I proceeded to walk her to the crosswalk, across the street and close enough to the cafe that she could make it on her own.

I laugh as I think back to that moment and seeing the faces of people in the cars at the crosswalk as this black dude was gingerly walking with an older Asian woman, her clutching my arm tightly...lol.

Just a few days later this happened:

I was out walking and I walked past a car in the street with its hazards on. Like it was possibly stalled. I moved past it and kept walking. As I moved up the street a car was driving down. It got just past me and then I heard it pump breaks and shift gears. This car drives in reverse and meets me (So trippy!). Its driven by the sweetest older sista. You know, she just carries that vibe of somebody's mama or favorite auntie haha.

She stops her car and asked me if everything is ok. I say yes, not sure why she's asking me. She then says "I just saw the car with hazards on and wanted to make sure you were alright". She thought it was my car and was willing to help me. This was a complete stranger to me, mind you. I explained that it wasn't my car and thanked her for her concern. I was legit in awe.

These three moments...Seemingly random...were so profound for me.

They showed me that walking through this world sort of clutching tightly my ability to give is pointless. I could have denied the opportunities to give and the kindness offered, but what would that have done? Of course discretion is key and being naive isn't helpful, but what I'm saying is why not be open if one can be?

It also illuminated this idea that kindnesses offered come as a

byproduct of giving genuinely and not half-assing life. Some call it grace, providence, blessings or luck.

It's really just your nature returning to you.

Getting what you give, as my elders often put it to me.

I am a catalyst for kindness and giving.

I know that there are some people who genuinely aren't but...I AM!

I could work in denial of that and hurt myself for sure but I'd hurt many others.

Hungry people, the elderly in need, people expressing genuine concern...that list could be endless. At times I keep wanting to define thuggin' as this restrictive, heartless way of being.

(primarily out of habit).

But as the world keeps extending opportunities for me to give and receive and my being evolves, I see that sometimes the most thuggish things one can do is to give fearlessly and receive graciously.

Honestly, when we drop our corrupted conditioning this is what life really looks like.