So, I heard about this ‘Kinds of Kindness’ flick, right? Word was it was doing the rounds in NYC. And I’m there, thinking, “Well, alright, might as well see what the fuss is about.” You hear “kindness” and “New York City” together, it kinda makes you pause, doesn’t it?
Trying to even get to a cinema showing it, that was a whole thing. The subway, man. You know how it is. Squeezed in, everyone looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. Someone’s headphones leaking tinny music, someone else letting out these big, dramatic sighs. Not exactly the warm-up you expect for a movie supposedly about being nice. It actually made me think of something else, something that happened a while back, completely different story but it just popped into my head.
This one time, I was on the G train, heading out to Brooklyn. Summer, you know, sticky, gross. Air conditioning doing its best, which wasn’t much. And there was this older fella, looked like he was about to just melt into the floor. Seriously struggling. And you know what? Packed train, not one person offers him a seat. Everyone glued to their phones, or staring at the ads like they were the most fascinating thing ever. I eventually had to, like, catch the eye of this younger guy and kinda nod towards the old man. He got up, bit of a grumble, but he did it. The old fella, he just sort of nodded back at me, real small, didn’t say a thing. Left me wondering, you know? Is that even kindness? Or just, I don’t know, doing the bare minimum ’cause someone else pointed it out? That whole ride just sat wrong with me. Honestly, it made me avoid that line for a good while.
Anyway, so back to this ‘Kinds of Kindness’ movie. I finally wrestled my way to the theater, still thinking about that guy on the train. And the line to get in? Snaking around the corner. People looking all antsy. Heard a couple bickering about who forgot to buy the advance tickets. Yeah, loads of ‘New York kindness’ right there in the queue, if you know what I mean.
Did I actually sit through the whole thing? Honestly, it’s a bit of a blur. Maybe I did, maybe I just caught the gist from folks talking about it. But the name, ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ that stuck with me. Makes you think, doesn’t it? All the different sorts there are.
- The big, obvious stuff people make a show of.
- Then there’s the quiet stuff, the things people do when they think no one’s watching.
- And then, well, there’s the stuff that looks like kindness but really isn’t. More like, you have to do it, or you’re just doing it for show.
It’s funny, that. You go looking for something grand with a label like ‘Kinds of Kindness’, especially in a city like New York. And what you really end up noticing are the tiny bits of it, or the total lack of it, just in your everyday shuffle. This city, it’ll throw every kind of everything at you. Kindness too, I guess. You just gotta squint to see it sometimes. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s more about the kindness you put out there yourself, not what you find in a movie title or hope to see from others. That fella on the G train, he probably doesn’t remember that day at all. But I do.
So yeah, that was my little run-in with the idea of ‘Kinds of Kindness’ in NYC. Turned out to be more of a head-scratcher than a movie outing. Made me think about what’s real and what’s just… talk. And that’s something, I suppose. Better than nothing.
