Civil Disobedience

Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.-- Bob Kerrey, former Governor of Nebraska

It’s not often that I wake up in the morning and within 5 minutes, be surprised about something. But today was one of those days.

I checked my phone for emails that came in overnight, and I had a message on Facebook from this young man I met last week at Philadelphia Leather Pride Night.

Since I’ve grown into the world of social media, I’ve had to get used to the fact that people act...differently. The hardest thing for me to get used to: people who don’t answer emails/messages.

In the corporate world, it is extremely bad form to not answer a business-related email within a day or two at most. If you are going on vacation, therefore, you had better put on an “out of office” reply because otherwise you are going to have some very annoyed clients/colleagues, which will lead to loss of trust (at best) and business (at worst).

Social media outlets are not, for the most part, beholden to corporate morés. On places like Facebook and Fetlife, I’ve had to get used to people who don’t answer their messages. And I do understand that there are lots of reasons people don’t or won’t or can't answer their messages: sometimes people have profiles that they don’t follow, or they quit Fetlife/Facebook but didn’t delete their accounts, or they are otherwise indisposed for some reason.

I’ve even had to get used to the old “no-reply-even-though-I-can-see-you’ve-been-online-for-days” routine. ;-)

[NOTE: If you’re reading this and one of the “guilty” ones who haven’t answered a message I sent you…please don’t worry about it. You have your own reasons I’m sure, I don’t hold grudges, and it’s not going to cause my world to collapse.]

When I started learning about bootblacking, I reached out to a lot of people, all over the country and the world. I got a list of names to start with, which grew. I sent many polite emails, and most of them were answered and led to a conversation and friend request. But there were a lot of bootblacks who didn't respond. Some of them title winners (which doesn't mean you’re perfect by any means but…perhaps my expectations are a little higher for you?) In any case, I know it’s part of the territory. You will never hit the target if you don’t throw any darts.

So back to the young man I met at PLPN.

His name is Oil Tan Sam, International Mr. Bootblack 2013, who was working at one of the bootblack stands. I asked permission to observe him work, which he gave. We talked, I asked a lot of questions and got answers, he showed me some products I hadn't seen before, he quizzed me. It was an amazing couple of hours.

After PLPN I found Sam on Facebook, sent a friend request, wrote him a message reminding him who I was and expressing my gratitude.

That, I figured, would be the end of it. He is a very busy guy and traveling all over the country; we only met once and probably won’t meet again. There is no reason for him to write back.

And I’ll be damned – this morning when I checked my messages, he had not only accepted my friend request, he wrote me a nice note in return.

Sometimes, people do surprise me, in wonderful ways. Just that one act of kindness made my whole day. And reminded me that in this brave new world where kindness and courtesy is often hard to find, it doesn't mean that I can't strive to be kind and courteous -- I should think of it as my own form of civil disobedience. ;-)

It’s the small things, ya know?