Giles Paley-Phillips: Kindness, And Finding Peace In An Angry World

You don’t need to go far to find something or someone to be angry at. If it isn’t our eyeballs and our attention that turns the golden bloated cogs of the attention economy, it’s our anger. The more enraged we become, the more tribalised we become, the more morally offended we become, the faster the wheels turn, and the more our manipulated emotions become currency.

So how do we avoid becoming spiritual fodder for the political/economic meat grinder? Could kindness be the answer?

Our lives happen in high definition. Every minute of every day is filled with vast amounts of information, much of it with added emotional and spiritual value. Someone smiled at us. We stubbed out toe. Our children aren’t feeling well. Is my manager angry at me? I hate this song on the radio. The shop has run out of my favourite breakfast cereal. What’s that awful politician done now?

But we generally see other people’s lives in low definition. They become two-dimensional characters in the soap operas of our lives. We are only privy to that part of them that appears on the screens of our day. We are encouraged to judge them based on a flimsy dearth of information, often presented to us with a hidden agenda. by those who serve to benefit from our opinions.

But if we can start to imagine that other people also have high definition lives, that they love their children, that they didn’t sleep well last night, that they got stuck in traffic today, that they can’t find their favourite pen this morning, that they’re as nervous and afraid as we are… then perhaps there’s a chance that the tribalism can break down, and we can start acting like grown ups. We can start talking to each other rather than shouting at each other. We can start listening to each other rather than judging each other. We can start understanding each other rather than demonising each other.

I spoke to the author Giles Paley-Phillips for the latest episode of my podcast. Giles is well known for his illustrated children’s books, but his latest book, One Hundred and Fifty Two Days, is a more mature story. Partly biographical, it resonates deeply and emotionally in this Covid-era.

We talked about the book, and also about kindness. You could call Giles a kindness evangelist, and his sharing and promotion of kind thoughts – as well as his books – have created quite a following. He is also the host of two podcasts – A Little Bit Of Positive and The Blank Podcast. Both of which are extremely popular.

Enjoy this episode of the podcast, and if you want to find out more about Giles, follow him on twitter at https://twitter.com/eliistender10