Kind in the dictionary is defined as, “sympathetic, friendly, gentle, tenderhearted, and generous” as in, “He was a strong leader, yet kind.”  Kind people are easy to love.

The word also means, “type of” as in, “What kind of pizza is that?” or “Humankind” (the type of living being that is human).

What’s interesting is the derivation, the history, of the word kind.  It has the same derivation as the word kin, which means “family.”  And it has the same derivation as kindred, which in addition to meaning “family,” also means, “sharing the same beliefs” as in, “We’re kindred spirits.”

Humankind originally came from two words put together.  The first meant “one who has intelligence” plus cynn which meant “family”.  Humankind defined as a family, brothers and sisters, who have intelligence.

The word kind is deeply rooted in the idea of family, with the additional meaning of people like us, meaning, our kind.  

And it’s to these people (our kind of people) we are most sympathetic, tenderhearted and generous.  In other words, our kindness flows more easily or naturally toward people who are similar to us, people who share our history, our views, people who feel like “our family”.

The more we see similarity between ourselves and others, and especially our similarity with all humankind, the more kindness we have in the world.

I’ve been studying ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt.  When I compare how much kindness was shown “outsiders” in their time (not much) to what I see today, despite an unrelentingly pessimistic media, I see that we never halt our pursuit of understanding, compassion, kindness and kinship with others.  We never stop talking.  We never stop trying to be understood.

Yes, we have a long way to go.   And seeing our similarities amidst any differences surely helps.  Our only tool is communication, as that is all that leads to understanding.  Causative communication.

I have faith we’ll arrive.

Be the cause!