It's not just easy to be kind to others, it's natural
First published in The Study of Light, on Substack, on October 28, 2025
Check it out — a great song from 1972, a band from Chicago, called Chicago. It’s a feel good tune about a great day in an ordinary place. But the vibe, the vibe is not ordinary. People are dancing and singing along with the music, feeling good, everybody, all around. A man selling ice cream, singing Italian songs…
I have happened upon such scenes as this. On a great day, and it could be Washington, DC, or Munich, or New Orleans, the weather is right, the people are right. It’s a public space, and nice enough that people want to be there. It’s probably a holiday or a weekend. It might be a particular event, like a concert, but it is more likely that it isn’t.
It’s the inclusion that makes it work. Everyone is welcome. Not everyone knows each other, and that’s okay. We’re just sharing a space and a moment.
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Georges Suerat.
My Wisconsin hometown has these moments. I have seen them on the National Mall, at Mardi Gras, at beaches, rivers, and lakefronts. Everyone is good with everyone else, which always means if there’s music, it’s not too loud. If someone looks or acts different, you just let them be. It’s all just people, hundreds or thousands of them, enjoying the day in proximity to others.
I want to hold moments like these as models for what society can be. “Look at this — it’s the fourth of July, and there’s a white family, next to an interracial family, and it’s all good. A trans person, who is just a person, and she’s having a great day. College students playing hacky sack stop their game to help a wobbly old man look for his glasses in the tall grass besides a live oak. A woman grilling hamburgers offers one to a stranger, who looks like he needs a hamburger.
It’s not just easy to be kind to others, it’s natural. People are doing it all the time. This is the world we live in.
