Random/senseless sucks
Somewhere deep in the digital archives of this blog must lie an earlier post on this topic, but I haven't the time nor inclination to dig it up. So I'll talk about it again, since I just saw this on a bumper sticker in the last couple days:
"Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty."
Sounds cute and warm and fuzzy at first blush, doesn't it?
Think about it a bit further though, and you realize it's a platitude. It makes no sense. Why act with random kindness? Why not be kind wherever possible? The random element means you can never be certain when someone is going to be mean or kind, which does reflect the nature of the world but also engenders a sense of tension and insecurity. If everyone was nicer, just out of common courtesy, we'd all get along better than we do.
Does that mean we coddle criminals? No, of course not. We should be kind where it's possible. Sometimes, though, the other people who don't quite get it put you in a position where being kind isn't an option. In any other circumstance, however, try it. You get further and make the world a more comfortable place for everyone including yourself.
Senseless beauty? I don't even know what that means, but how about a general principle of operating from a position of beauty in all areas of our lives? Take pride in our personal appearance, our homes, our vehicles, our surroundings. Not from a position of status symbols or arrogance, but out of a basic sense of stewardship. Make your own corner of the world a pretty place, and you help improve the world.
Kindness and beauty are fantastic. I think they rock. It's the "random" and "senseless" aspects of that simplistic bumper sticker that get me riled up. The more I think about it, though, I think what gets me riled up is that someone saw that sticker, thought it was cute, and stopped thinking about it right there. They didn't take the time to think it through, they just stopped once they heard the warm/fuzzy.