The power and importance of small acts of humanity
For the past year I have been living in Bali, Indonesia. Far from the holiday island paradise that most visitors will fondly remember, Bali in 2020 was — and continues to be — something of a disaster zone. I use the term reluctantly because, as I have written previously, Bali may be dying a thousand deaths, but Bali is not dying. However there is simply no escaping the fact that in economic terms the pandemic and resultant border closure have been an economic disaster for this small island. With 70% of the population and 50% of the total economy utterly reliant on tourism, Bali must surely be one of the hardest hit places on the planet.
And yet life in Bali goes on. And it is in this context of inspiring social resilience that I have been learning rich and wondrous lessons about life.
One of the greatest of these lessons concerns the power and importance of small acts of humanity.
It is easy when confronted with seemingly overwhelming circumstances to become overwhelmed. And it seems perfectly logical (to me at least) that in the face of big problems we look for big solutions. But what does one do when confronted with an overwhelming problem for which there simply is no big solution?
For a small minority of people here (the wealthy and those who still have jobs — perhaps in government or in industries not connected to tourism) the pandemic is a troublesome interruption to normality. But for the vast majority of the population, including most of my friends and acquaintances, the impacts of the pandemic range from serious to disastrous. And when I sit with these people and discuss what we can do it is invariably impossible to find any solution.
What does one do, for example, for someone whose only job ever has been hotel housekeeping, who has little education, no identifiable alternate skills, no access to land to grow food, whose entire life savings are now gone after 10 months of lockdown, and who is one of a family of seven — including elderly parents and an adult disabled brother — who are all barely surviving on the part time income of one household member? I have no tool in my toolbox that can fix this situation. Try as I might — and I have tried so hard so many times — I can find no answer to this overwhelming problem. And this frustrates me and at times tempts me to despair.
One day I even found myself getting angry at some women and children begging in the streets of Ubud. It was not because they were begging, but because I knew they were almost certainly in genuine need and I could not help them. The need was overwhelming and my wallet was now empty, and my powerlessness in that situation made me angry.
My problem, I now realise, is that I was focused on the wrong things. I was looking for an economic solution to an economic problem. But in doing so I had made myself blind to the human solution to a human problem. It turns out I had tremendous power all along, I just didn’t realise it because I was looking at things wrong.
My perspective changed the day I helped a local community group distribute food to orphans and street people in Denpasar. The group, comprised almost entirely of people who have lost their own livelihoods due to the pandemic, had been raising funds and collecting food for the needy, and came together for a day of ‘social action’ just after Christmas. What I witnessed and experienced that day was the incredible power of small acts. Small acts of support. Small acts of care. Small acts of solidarity.
My focus in the lead up to that day was on raising as much money as I could so we could buy as much food as we could to help as many people as we could. We were faced with a big problem and I was trying to materialise a big solution. What I realised that day was that I had been focused on entirely the wrong thing.
What I saw that day were children smiling because someone was visiting and playing with them. What I witnessed was orphanage staff whose spirits were bouyed because someone else was standing with them and helping them carry their burden, even if just for an hour or two. What I experienced was a sense of solidarity and joy amongst the volunteers that had nothing to do with the amount of money raised, or the quantity of food delivered, or the number of people helped.
What I witnessed was the seemingly absurd power of small acts of human kindness in the face of overwhelming need.
Bali is weathering the terrible economic impacts of the pandemic not because of aid or government programs — which are practically non-existent — but because of countless small acts of human kindness, compassion and support within its communities.
Part of the privilege of living in Bali this past year is that it has allowed me as a ‘westerner’ to once again live outside of the bubble of western culture, and be immersed in a culture with entirely different values and priorities. I can only speak for myself of course, but my experiences here have made me realise with even greater clarity just how focused mainstream western culture is on economics and the well-being of the economy, and not on humanity and the well-being of society. I’m old enough to remember Bill Clinton’s famous election cry “It’s the economy stupid!” I’m pretty sure that at the time I believed him. But no longer. If this year in economically ravaged Bali has taught me anything, it is that it is not the economy that sustains people, it’s the support of other people. It’s not money or possessions that give people hope and succor in time of need, it’s small acts of human kindness, love and solidarity.
If your local economy was to disappear — as literally 50% of the Bali economy did overnight in March 2020 — and there was no money at all coming in, what would it be that sustains you? Well if Bali is anything to go by it would be the compassion and support of your fellow human beings. It would be the strength of your relationships with neighbours and friends and the health and resilience of your local community. Things that the Dow Jones doesn’t measure, and that you can’t find on the shelf of your local supermarket.
Of course hungry people need food, and homeless people need shelter, and sick people need medical care. But that is not the whole of the story. And you may at some time find yourself powerless to do anything about those big needs. But this does not mean you are powerless in all things.
My encouragement to anyone reading this article who feels powerless in the face of overwhelming problems — whether it be the pandemic, the climate crisis, the political upheaval in the US, or any number of other things — is that despite those things you still retain in yourself tremendous power through your ability to perform small acts of kindness, support or solidarity for your fellow humans. There are plenty of problems in the world right now that you can’t change, but there are also plenty of lives right now that you CAN change, by even the smallest of acts.
