Being Kind

How can we express our American Creed? We can protest. We can lobby. We can fight. We can kill. We can scream at one another until our voices are shot. But isn't that in itself not at all what the American Creed is? Everything seems so different each day, so alien. I have no idea what's even going on anymore, how what can happen in this country can happen, how we could ever get back to where we were. If we ever were at all. In the end, the only thing any of us can do to express our Creed is try to be kind.

I don't agree with the second amendment. I never have, and especially after the events recent to my writing this in Uvalde, Texas have I been even more encouraged to make a statement. I live in Ohio, and have friends who disagree, but whenever we talk, we don't scream and shout and fight, we talk, we're calm, we try to understand each other. Sometimes, we ca actually learn something about something. It feels like people just lob their beliefs and ideas over the massive wall we've constructed, hoping that someone on the other side will randomly decide to catch it and listen. Why can't we just take down the wall and be gentle with each other?

Every time I've ever gotten into a shouting match, nothing ever happens for the better. My Creed, my beliefs, can't be conveyed to someone who feels too alienated and angry to listen. Without kindness, nothing goes right. On the other hand, whenever I can approach something with kindness and poise, I can convey my Creed successfully. I remember me and some other 8th grader screaming our heads off on our opinions about the 2016 election, how all I felt afterwards was more and more angry. There could have been an opportunity for real debate, real conclusions met, and new understanding, but no, we wasted it.

Kindness is historical. During the battle of Okinawa, Desmond Doss couldn't have saved 75 lives without an insane amount of deep, human kindness. His Creed was to help as many people as he could, and he did because of his ability to be kind, even in the middle of a battlefield, without ever pulling a trigger. Imagine someone else in that situation, furious seeing their fellow soldiers hit, responding to hate with his own malice. Martin Luther King, Jr. never needed to resort to violence. King, to be specific, knew that if a movement was to be successful, it must be a movement of peace and kindness, that no hand should be raised to counter violence with violence. His actions reflected his Creed, which would go on to change the Creeds of millions more Americans. 

In conclusion, the only thing any of us can do to express our Creed is to just be kind to one another.