The delightful power of secular benediction
In an increasingly cruel world, the social weight of kindness is magnified
Some years ago I was leaving the apartment that I had moved to after the end of my marriage. It was on the fourth floor, at the top of an old brick walkup that was stiflingly hot in the increasingly warm summers, and I had found a new space which was not only bigger and cheaper, but blissfully cooler. While carrying a box of my possessions down the stairs for the last time I ran into one of the other tenants and took the opportunity to say goodbye. We didn’t know each other well, but had always been polite.
“Oh, that’s awful,” she told me. “I mean, I really hope you’re happy in your new place,” she hastened to clarify, “it’s just that I’m going to miss bumping into you. You’re the happiest person in the building. You always have something nice to say.”
Happiest person in the building? This was news to me. There were some good memories and accomplishments worth celebrating in my nine years there, but I had been seriously depressed and in poverty for much of it. There were whole years I was just barely keeping it together. I figured I was the most miserable sod in the whole building. A stain on its entire mood.
