Kindness and Strangeness
I was in Indiana for a speaking program and agreed to have breakfast with local faith leaders. We walked to our table, and a woman came over to say hello. She said she attended the event the night before and really appreciated it. We chatted briefly about our lives and work, and then said goodbye. That was it, or so I thought.
After lunch, the coordinator from my program asked if I knew the woman. I told her that we just met there. The coordinator then shared that my new friend had paid for breakfast. Not just mine, but for our entire group.
How kind is that? I’ve seen this kind of things in movies, but this was my first time being the recipient of it. I was so, so touched.
A few nights later, I was back in New York and went to my publisher’s holiday party. They asked authors to make desserts for it, so I baked and brought mediocre brownies. I dropped my plate at the front upon arriving and went off to hang out with friends.
About fifteen minutes later, I was chatting with a group, and it somehow came up that I made brownies for the event. Someone in our group who jumped in immediately with a loud “That makes so much sense!”
I thought he was going to make a dumb joke about the brown guy making brownies. He’s South Asian too, and I’d heard him make similar jokes before, including on TV. But then he explained: “Another woman came and thanked me for the brownies. That must have been meant for you.”
We laughed, joking about how similar we must look to people. His silver white hair matching the trim on my red turban; his sharp chin matching my long, uncut beard. Seriously, the only thing we shared in appearance was that we had some hues of brown in our skin.
We all understood what happened, and it didn’t dampen my night or his, as far as I could tell. It was a small reminder of something we already knew and preferred to forget: The world we inhabit can be small-minded.
That these two events took place within days of one another was a reminder to me of how life can surprise you, and how variegated our lives are. We talk about how remarkable it is that every person is unique, that every fingerprint it unique, that every snowflake is unique. The variation in our world is endless.
What we don’t think about so much, and what I don’t often appreciate, is how unique our experiences are. How can it be that, after being on this earth for four decades (yes, I turn 40 this year!), I am still astonished by the things people say and do. I tell myself that I’ve heard and seen it all, and to some degree, I believe that.
But then, when I’m out in the world and encounter the unexpected—as I did with this woman who paid for my lunch in Indianapolis and with my long lost identical twin at the holiday party—I’m reminded that, actually, the world is always new, if we let ourselves experience it in that way.
This feeling of newness is so beautiful and powerful and humbling, and it’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot this past year. In Sikhi, we call this awe-struck feeling vismaad, and Guru Nanak uses it to describe his wonderment with the world all around him. In English, we often use the word wonder, and it’s becoming more of a cultural buzzword.
At a time when we are so quick to shut down curiosity and lean into judgement, what would it look like for us to live in such a way that we no longer ascribe positive or negative valences to what we experience in life? What if, instead, we meet these moments with a sense of openness and astonishment, appreciating them for what they are, and appreciating them also as expressions of the vast diversity that’s constantly all around us.