A hug from the British comedy DEREK.
I heard a fantastic line this week, so simple but so true. I’ve started watching the British series called Derek on Netflix. Written, directed, and starred in by Ricky Gervais, the show is hard to describe. Gervais plays a probably autistic, sweet, caring man that works/lives in an elderly group home, but he is only 50. I guess I would call the show a comedy and a poignant drama. The episodes are only 25 minutes long and are done as a reality tv/documentary…sort of.
The main character Derek is phenomenally acted and the portrayal of the group home and its residents feel so realistic that I find myself wondering if the elderly people are not really actors, but playing themselves. The characters are a combination of so sweet and so weird and sometimes so disturbing that Gervais has created an incredibly eclectic context to pass on strange and haunting truths to the audience. We are all aging and our ending years may not be graceful and full of glitter, but I hope we all can be cared for in such a wonderful mess of people caring for each other.
In the pilot episode, one of the residents dies. She is Derek’s favorite and he is beset with grief. Derek has a simple and incredibly kind heart. There is a remarkable scene where he is talking about Joan and why she meant so much to him. He looks directly into the camera while holding a scrunched up tissue to dry in wet eyes and says something like, “Joan would always tell me that kindness was magic….it was more important to be kind than clever or good-looking…I know I am neither of those, so….” He bows his head and looks off into empty space.
Kindness is magic…what a simple and profound piece of wisdom. Think of what kindness does. What it creates. The little pockets of beauty that it passes between living things. Try adding true kindness into a difficult situation and watch the world change its shape for the better. Kindness can charm any problem. It truly is a most powerful form of magic. Unfortunately, kindness is also a word we use so often; and quite frankly we practice enough so that we don’t feel its magic as deeply. This is a great loss.
Kindness is magic is my favorite line for the year. It has been a strange and unsettling year, especially in this country. It is easy to feel powerless, disillusioned. Quite frankly, I’ve been worried about the direction we’re heading for many years. That is why I do the things I do. There is so much that I cannot control. There is so much to worry about, especially when I think about the world we are handing off to our children…and even worse what our children’s children will inherit.
But kindness is magic strikes me as so hopeful. I can do this magic in the coming years. Maybe not every single day, but I can do more….a lot more. I can listen more. Touch more. Feel more. Give more hugs. Help people become whatever they are becoming. And most of all, I can feel it when I’m doing it. I don’t mean that I can feel good about being kind. I mean that I can share kindness and know that I am participating in the greatest magic that human beings have ever created.
Happy New Year!