This short article/essay is now featured on the Soul Graffiti LLC website as I was appointed Director of Youth Projects, to head the Youth Graffiti division. I am sharing the article here with everyone again. And I welcome any comments, questions, and contributions.

I seldom link the character of kindness to my peers, that is, youth, for I know the times they go through and the emotions they bear during… the angst and insecurity typical to the times of youth often alienate them from the world, giving them no relief to begin considering the others. But I’m wrong. Not about the complex emotions youth go through while in transition to adulthood, but about the character of kindness in their nature. Indeed, I’ve been pleasantly surprised on several occasions: I’ve witnessed a young gangster man hold the door open to a father and his son at an arcade, fifteen-year-old girls help an unfamiliar old lady carry her groceries to her home, a stern twenty-years-old boy offer a hug to a crying two-year-old, and a small group of high school kids stop and help push a middle-aged man and his car out of snow… These are all admirable examples of kindness given by youth and my fortunate observance of these occurrences certainly taught me a few lessons as well as uplifted my spirit from the seemingly gloomy world. The truth is; kindness is a great virtue that can exist in even the smallest gestures, from anyone, anywhere. I never understood that fully until very recently, one ordinary night.

That ordinary night, my godparents had welcomed my sisters, myself and our friends (that they had never met) into their home for dinner. My godparents have been my mentors on kindness ever since my childhood and their natural warmth easily broke the ice. We had a pleasant dinner interspersed with hearty laughs. After dinner, everyone settled in the living room and some began singing on the karaoke machine as others watched and listened or renewed conversation. I sang for a while, but worried about some of my friends whom I knew would likely feel uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment, around unfamiliar people. So I took a pause and turned to a girlfriend who was playing with her digital camera to ask her how she was. We chatted for a little before she excused herself to the washroom. While waiting for her, I picked up her digital camera and started playing the pictures she’d taken. Then, there it was, kindness, effortlessly manifested in those pictures. She had recorded, shot after shot, my smiling godmother and her daughter in her lap, my sisters happily breaking into songs, and our other girlfriends laughing and conversing… My girlfriend wasn’t a photographer; not amateur, not professional. She was probably just taking pictures to pass the time. Yet, in the pictures she took that night, I felt appreciation and recognition for the beauty and tenderness of human interaction. That innocent awareness is kindness. To be able to appreciate and recognize beauty in others is kindness. Discovering those pictures in my unsuspecting friend’s camera was like uncovering a treasure at a familiar yet mostly unexpected hiding site, a both simple and profound find, certain to make a mark in my heart and memory.

That moment was my soul graffiti. Kindness is everywhere and it can be observed in anyone, all it requires is the heart’s eye. After that ordinary yet insightful night, I believe I now have an improved and heightened sense for kindness: I will see it, not only in youth, but from anyone, anywhere, at any time.