A man on the street told me he liked my boots and then kept walking.
He did not stop. He did not want anything. He looked down as he passed, said "love those boots, man," and went on with his coffee like nothing had happened. Like he had not just handed a stranger a piece of his esteem in the open street and left without collecting anything in return.
I stood on the corner for some time.
Where I come from, you do not praise a man you do not know. Praise is heavy. It is earned over years, offered with care, and it binds the two men who exchange it. To give it freely, to a stranger, while walking, is either madness or the most generous act I have witnessed in this country. I decided it was the second. And a generous act demands an equal answer.
But the man was gone. He had given me his esteem and vanished before I could return mine. I was left holding a debt with no one to pay it to.
So I resolved to be ready next time.
Two days later a woman at the bus stop said "cute scarf!" I was ready. I had spent those two days preparing. I turned to her and told her that her posture suggested discipline, that the steadiness in her eyes spoke of someone who had endured a great deal and stayed kind, and that her bag, while practical, showed a stubborn refusal to perform wealth she did not feel. I returned a praise worthy of the scarf compliment, plus interest, because she had gone first, and the one who goes first is owed more.
She said "...okay" and boarded a different bus than the one she had been waiting for.
She had been moved. I understood. A man can only receive so much honor at once before he must withdraw to absorb it.
I am better at this now. I no longer wait to be praised. I praise first. I praise the man who holds the elevator. The woman who scans my groceries. The child who is simply standing near his father, being a credit to his line. I give it with both hands, heavily, the way it deserves to be given, and I watch them light up and stammer and hurry away full of it.
They were right about this country. The people here are unbelievably warm. You compliment one stranger's boots and the whole city falls in love with you.
@AlphaMaleToon@MayorsGallery@helkoireal What country do you think I’m from? And those are actual problems in America and not influenced from my experience being abroad. Challenge them or tone it down
@AlphaMaleToon@MayorsGallery@helkoireal Over policing, access to medical care, having to prove ourselves worthy of being in spaces we are qualified to be in, being the targeted even when there’s no crime committed…
Nobunga is an amazing story teller. He takes common American occurrences and tells them from the point of view of a Japanese samurai and it’s hilarious.
Wait wait wait. Hold up.
Having a song constantly in your head isn't normal?
Apparently it's internalized echolalia, a part of being neurodivergent. 🤯
Peabo Bryson, the iconic singer-songwriter behind the Oscar-winning Disney songs "Beauty and the Beast" and "A Whole New World," has died at 75 https://t.co/zWSrgCaGch