Episode 11

Institutional Kindness

I am a prison abolitionist, I do not think prison should exist. I think that we need to come up with other options for our culture. However, I am aware that most people are not there, that most people are not able or willing to consider prison abolition. And I swear this is connected to business, you've got to stick with me for the whole thing, though.

We need to move our entire society toward a new expectation of institutional kindness, from all of our institutions, and create alternatives to shitty working conditions. And when we create alternatives then we give people choices, and when we give people choices, they realize that more is possible. They become less constricted, they become more creative, they become more interested in what else could happen. Something different could happen. And when they realize that something different and more and better is possible, you know what happens next? They change. They become more generous, they become more community oriented, they become more interconnected. They recognize that it feels different to be treated well because they're having this experience of being treated well. We can make the world different by how we do things in our own organizations. One of the things that we can do is be really radically inclusive of everybody. And when you start to think like that, then your kindness just levels up massively, you're enacted kindness.

CB Beal and Preemptive Radical Inclusion: https://justiceandpeaceconsulting.com/preemptive-radical-inclusion/

Transcript
Leela Sinha:

I was thinking about this already. But then

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this morning, in this moment of, what I have set aside as

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vacation, this thing happened. I opened a library book, a

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physical paper library book, that I've been working my way

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through in a kind of eccentric, inconsistent way. It's called

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the Sabbath World. And the author's name is Shulevitz. And

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in this book, she's talking about this kind of contrast

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between the modern world and the very concept, the very idea of a

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Sabbath, of a set aside, non working time, that's not just

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individual but communal. And as part of her work around this, as

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part of her conversation around this, she talks about the way

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that time became standardized over time, it didn't, it didn't

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become standardized right away, it became standardized in chunks

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and bits, until finally, we had a global sense of time. And with

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that global sense of time came a global sense of immediacy, a

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global sense of something happening everywhere all the

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time at once. And with that sense of everything happening

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everywhere at once comes this sense of overwhelm, which is

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what I was just saying, yesterday. I made an Instagram

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reel. And I talked about how I need my I need my information in

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buckets. And I was also talking to a client. And I was saying, I

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don't think we need as much completeness as we expect

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ourselves to have. I think, this internet, global reach, where we

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have access to pretty much everything that has been written

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down, and everything that has been spoken into a microphone or

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recorded in some way. And access to so many people and so many

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experts in so many opinions and so many ideas, I think we have

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this idea that we have to first go and collect all of the

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information, like we're all PhD students of everything. And

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while I think that there are times and places where it's

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useful to have as much information as humanly possible,

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I'm not sure that this much information about everything is

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humanly possible. In fact, I think it is not. It's okay to

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read three or four opinions and then formulate your own and then

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share it with five or six people. And that's the end of

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it. It's okay to have human scale interactions, not just

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with other people, but with data, with information. With

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transformative experiences. We don't have to have all of the

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peak optimized things happening all at once. It's okay to

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operate on a human scale. And in fact, it may be better if we

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operate on a human scale, because when we try to operate

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on anything that isn't a human scale, often we amplify our

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mistakes before we know that they're happening. If I say an

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unkind or unwise thing to one person, sitting at a cafe table,

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or over breakfast, that unkind thing reaches that one person

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and that one person, if they are a kind and wise member of my

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community may reflect back to me that I have said, an unkind

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thing. And then that unkind thing goes no further, it has no

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larger impact than that. I said this to this person, it will

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ripple outward for that person in some way it may ripple into

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our relationship. But it's not everywhere, all at once with

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that mistake magnified. I have an opportunity to correct myself

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in small community, I have an opportunity to grow unobserved,

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almost unobserved, I have an opportunity to become, on a

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human scale, in a human way, at a human pace. Broadcast is a

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very complicated way to learn about yourself. And right now,

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social media, the internet, everything, is kind of forcing

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us into that. But we have choices. In most cases, we have

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choices. We don't have to allow that to be the thing. We don't

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have to allow that to be the model. In some ways, we're all

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prototyping all the time. We're prototyping ourselves, we're

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exploring ourselves. It's not... it's like those sketches that an

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artist does before they decide how they're gonna do the big

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painting, they just kind of, you know, put little sketches in the

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corners of their notebooks, they experiment with poses, they

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experiment with lighting, they experiment with color palettes

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that don't actually have any figure in them. They're just

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trying to get the skin color, right, or the color of the

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light, right, or those flowers in the background, or this

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really weird color of yellow, and they can't figure out how to

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make it. So they're doing all these test swatches and test

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sketches and experiments, how will this work? How, what if I

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put this body three inches to the left? What will that do for

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the composition? And we're doing that with ourselves, too: test

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sketching. We say something out loud to three friends. And they

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reflect back to us what that looks like, when you stand back

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from the easel. Then we can make adjustments before we're

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invested in hundreds of thousands of dollars of

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materials and time and energy and, and before our soul is

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really invested in that thing so deeply. We just test it. And

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that's why community is so important. Because when someone

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test... balloons? When someone test... pilots? When someone

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tests something in front of a small audience, and you're part

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of that small audience, you are the place where that thing

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becomes encouraged or it doesn't, where it grows, or it

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doesn't, where it emerges or doesn't. And you are part of the

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possibility that it could emerge in a different way that there's

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a gem of truth, but there's also a thorn, and we need to work out

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how to have less thorn and more gem, or just less thorn, maybe

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the gem is perfect as it is. Or maybe the thorn is important,

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maybe it needs two thorns. But that's what we do in community,

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in small community, in unamplified voices in

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unmagnified spaces. So if I think about this concept of

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immediacy, of everything everywhere all at once, all the

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time, it's overwhelming. And if I think about adding my voice to

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that, that morass, it can be terrifying. What if I do it

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wrong? What if I get this thing wrong? And it's amplified and

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magnified? And it does massive amounts of harm? On the other

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hand, what if I have a really good idea, and I don't share it,

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because I'm afraid that it's going to do harm? How do we

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resolve this? We resolve this in small community, we resolve this

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in intimacy, we resolve this in trusting relationships, I don't

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expect everyone to have a trust relationship with me. But the

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people I do have a trust relationship with and who do

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trust me, those are the people. Those are the people that I rely

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on. To help me do less harm. I don't expect to do no harm. But

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those are the people I rely on to help me do less harm, to help

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me do more good, to figure out which things are advancing just

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my own curious energy and which things are advancing some larger

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agenda. Some things aren't interesting beyond the confines

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of my own head or my own pad of paper; other things, anything is

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possible. Other things are liberating. Other things are

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transformative. Other things. Other things have an effect that

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I have no way of predicting. In which respect, I'm a lot like

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some of the tech mega giants. I don't think Google predicted

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where they would be. I don't think Facebook predicted where

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they would be. I certainly don't think Twitter predicted where

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they are at this point. But you start with an idea that might be

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transformative. You start with a thought, you start with a

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noticing of something, a place where the shoe rubs against

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everyone's foot. Maybe not everyone, maybe just a lot of

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feet. And you're like, Hey, I'm pretty sure I can avoid that

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blistering problem here. Let me see if I stick this moleskin in

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there, if that helps. Let me see if I can get that rock out of

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there completely.

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But to figure this out, and to figure out how to focus, how to

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how to make it smaller, how to find our communities, our small

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spaces, where we can test things before we bring them to the

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arena, before we bring them to the stage, before we bring them

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to the globe. We have to forget for a moment that everything is

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happening at once. We have to set down for a moment, the mind

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blowing, comprehensive immediacy of mutual time. And instead we

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look at when the sun rose in my window, we look at when the

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flowers bloomed in my neighborhood. I look at my

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neighborhood with my people and my neighbors. You look at your

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neighborhood with your people and your neighbors. There are

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people beyond our spaces, that's important to know. But we don't

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start there. We start wrestling with our own group of two or

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five or twelve. We start wrestling with ourselves, with a

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book, on a quiet morning.

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Or when we just can't do the laundry anymore.

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Or when someone asks us for help. We start the wrestling

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with ourselves, with our own communities. With our small

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groups. It's important to have a small space, and a place where

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time stops for a moment. Whether that's a Sabbath or whether

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that's a room where you close the door and there are no

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clocks. I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like to

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live in a world before motorized transportation. Where everything

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is circumscribed by the amount of land you can cover by

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yourself or with the help of another animal. And this is not

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that different than how much time can you cover

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by yourself? By the rising and setting of the sun? By the

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changing of the temperature of the day or of the season? How

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much time can you let go of, to find the rhythm, to find the

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space where you can just be yourself? Thanks for tuning in.

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