An Internet meme making the rounds is Woody Guthrie’s 1943 “New Years Rulins.” Some are specific to Woody –write a song a day,” “play and sing good,” “dance better” – that apply to any musician who admires that guy. He pledges to send money to his wife and kids from his rambles, and also “save dough” and “bank all extra money,” good advice for our consumerist culture. I don’t agree with “shave,” “shine shoes” or “change socks.” (I go barefoot as often as possible.) “Read lots good books,” “learn people better,” “keep rancho clean,” “dont get lonesome,” “Stay glad,” “keep hoping machine going,” “have company but dont waste time” and “love everybody” are wise counsel for today’s uptight stressed-out world.
My wife boiled her resolutions down to two words: BE NICE. Be nice to yourself, everyone you meet, be nice to animals, including spiders. But then she realized, in 2020, even niceness is subject to interpretation. Our government believes it is nice to build a wall from Brownsville to San Diego, but people who own land there don’t want to surrender their property to eminent domain, and that includes all of us, because much of south Texas is public land with canyons teeming with wildlife. Some folks don’t believe it is nice to fence refugees in concentration camps along that same border, separating children from their parents.
One daughter currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, not yet endangered by the fires that are burning up much of that continent. Their government believes they must be nice to the coal industry that has contributed to the degradation of land and air that has helped ignite the landscape. Their prime minister had to cut short his Hawaii vacation to act nice for people fleeing fires. Pity the poor koala, always pictured as nice and cute until they are barbecued in their forest habitat.
From Webster’s dictionary’s “History and Etymology for nice: Middle English, foolish, wanton, from Anglo-French, silly, simple, from Latin nescius ignorant, from nescire not to know – more at NESCIENCE.”
I couldn’t name the plays, but Shakespeare described nice characters of this sort, proud of their ignorance. Consider the Know-Nothing Party which existed in the US 1840s- ‘50s.
Fervently anti-Catholic, they believed that Catholics would take orders from the Pope and subvert native-born white Protestant male government. They were suspicious of and opposed to immigrants, although descended from immigrants themselves. Nice guys, who when asked about their secret society, were told to say, “I know nothing.”
Sound familiar? Our 21st century know-nothings pass laws that state Islamic Sharia law cannot be enacted in the US. Crazy people learn recycled bigotry in secret parts of the dark web to ambush churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, movie houses and shopping malls to shoot up somebody who ain’t a paranoid nut that looks like them.
So how are we supposed to be nice? Respect yourself, and everyone you meet. (Even them spiders.) Forgive people for their ignorance, their prejudices, their suspicions, their raggedy appearance, their errors in action, their viewpoints you don’t share. And start by forgiving yourself, for your bad habits, for the rotten things you have said or done that offended someone.
Accept people for who they are and look for ways we are alike rather than different. I’m always fascinated to meet people from other places, other cultures, to learn more about where they came from, how they observe holidays, how they prepare meals, what are their hopes and goals – and this includes people right here in my neighborhood, in the grocery store, in a cafe, in line to vote.
I went to pick up Grandma’s meds the other day. A customer using hearing aids was “speaking” American Sign Language to the clerk. When it was my turn, I said, “So you’re trilingual!” for I have heard him speaking Spanish, too. He laughed and nodded. He was busy so I didn’t inquire further, but one day I will. It would be nice to know how a young American of Spanish heritage ended up as a Walmart pharmacy technician instead of a courtroom interpreter.