Kindness Is More Than Good Intentions
Kindness is most often associated with friendliness, helpfulness and care for others. It can, however, be understood more broadly: as accepting someone’s presence and recognising that every being has its own needs, fears and desires. A being does not have to resemble us, be especially likeable or useful in order to deserve attention. After all, Moominvalley is inhabited by a wide variety of characters. Some long for closeness, while others seek solitude. Some are brave and outgoing, while others are almost invisible. Yet all of them have the right to be themselves.
A Creature Nobody Takes into Account
In the story “Spring Song”, Snufkin encounters a tiny, frightened creature. It has no home, no significance and not even a name.
“I’m so small that I don’t have a name” – it announces.
The absence of a name shows that, until then, the creature has remained outside the field of vision of others. It existed, but as if on the margins of the world. Snufkin gives it a name and, through this simple gesture, confirms its presence. The creature ceases to be an anonymous “something” and becomes someone who can introduce itself to others, build a home and begin its own story. Kindness, therefore, does not always require great sacrifice. Sometimes the most important gesture is simply noticing someone whom nobody has ever taken into account.
Art as a Form of Care
Snufkin is a loner who needs freedom and silence. At the same time, he creates songs to share them later with his friends. His music is not intended solely to express his own emotions. It is meant to bring others beauty, hope and a sense of closeness.
“Everything we create, we do not create solely to express ourselves, but to give it to others.”
Art can therefore be a form of care. It does not have to instruct anyone or solve every problem. It is enough that it allows another person to feel that their experiences have been noticed. Tove Jansson herself displayed a similar attitude. She received thousands of letters, including many from children, and made an effort to reply to them. She took seriously the people who shared their questions, fears and experiences with her.
Care Begins with Attentiveness
The philosophy of the Moomins also reminds us that kindness does not mean being constantly available. Snufkin needs solitude in order to gather his thoughts and finish a song. Caring for others should not lead to the complete abandonment of one’s own needs. It may instead manifest itself in listening, noticing someone’s fear, offering a response or leaving another person the space to act independently. Kindness begins even before a specific action is taken. It is born at the moment when we stop treating the world as a backdrop to our own affairs. We notice another person, their shy glance and their need to be taken seriously. Tove Jansson’s stories do not offer a complicated moral code. Rather, they remind us that there are beings all around us who wish to be noticed. Sometimes all it takes is to pause, listen and allow someone to believe that their story truly matters.
Lecture: “Filozofia życzliwości w opowieściach o Muminkach Tove Jansson” [The Philosophy of Kindness in Tove Jansson’s Moomin Stories] delivered by Prof. Jarosław Płuciennik, was recorded during the conference ”Jak powstaje w nas dobro" [How Goodness Arises Within Us] (in Polish).
Edit: Michał Gruda (Centre for External Relations)
