What you can learn from someone who’s trying to hide from the world on the floor of a bus.

My friend Warrick says that a person’s personality is pretty well set by the time they turn 25. If that’s the case, I’ve got about 3 months to wring some bitterness out of myself and cram a little more compassion in. I have a heart that’s filled with so much impatience and criticism. But I heard something on NPR (half of what moves me on a daily basis comes from NPR these days) yesterday that made me think twice about sneering when people say “being kind is truly the most important thing we can do on this earth”.

I heard photographer Michael Nye speak about his “Fine Line” project. He got to know people around his city who are considered to have mental illness. He photographed and interviewed them. You can see his project at this site: http://www.michaelnye.org/fineline/photoaudio.html
The words that made me think more about kindness came from the lady in the photograph on the bottom row that is second from the left.

The other interesting thing I heard on the same radio show was about the documentary “The Bridge”. The maker of the film had heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is the number one suicide spot in the world. People worldwide travel there to die. So he and his crew filmed the bridge every day for one year. Apparently they stirred up a lot of controversy, but also a lot of awareness with the film.
http://www.thebridge-themovie.com/new/index.html