Meaningful Manners
Photo used by: Techa Tungateja Getty images
Manners are a soft edges.
Manners are actions creating a container surrounding the act - an embodied way of showing care and respect to our fellow humans.
Manners are words; the well formatted email (boundaries) addressing the recipient at the top (acknowledgement) and taking the time to close with a certain amount of grace (gratitude).
Without manners, there’s no acknowledgement of effort. Without acknowledgement, the provider of the effort can lose hope, lose esteem, lose motivation (it’s possible to keep going, but life is not as bright and things inevitably crack).
Without manners, we live in an undefined world. The internet is one such immense, undefinable world. It’s where every message and medium exists.
On the net, people are disembodied. They are untethered from the real life corporal boundaries of themselves and others. The link between the effects of action on a reader and a reader’s life is disconnected. In this abyss, some people feel free to let out their rage, their ugliness, their rudeness, onto the keyboard.
If our experience and practice of manners diminishes, so does the expression of gratitude, of empathy, of awareness.
Manners are modeled, manners are learned. Manners are passed down through millenia.
At best, manners lubricate cultures and societies. They aren’t doctrines, or oppressive rules, rather suggestions on how to behave. They speak to other’s boundaries, their soft edge.
If we can stay aware of manners - of ours and others, then we have a chance of living on the soft edge.
A soft edge:
Where action and acknowledgement meet.
Where gratitude and service meet.
Where (good) intention goes to find its bedfellows.
Here’s to the soft edge!
Till next week,
Rachel
