"Please" and "Thank You" Costs

but Cost =/= Waste

“It costs nothing to be kind.”

We have all heard some iteration of the above quote at some point.

On one level, we know it to be true: being kind is a technically-free and an obviously-priceless mode of humanity.

On another level, I think we instinctually understand that being kind is not actually so easy or so second-nature that it is energetically “free.” I think that we intuit on a supernatural / metaphysical level that being kind does cost us: spiritual energy.

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If being kind were so free, and if it were so easy - or at least freer and easier than the alternatives - then we would be living in a world that has a baseline of kindness.

We wouldn’t need “sayings” reminding us to be kind.

We feel that it costs extra energy - a little extra “oomph” if you will - to say, “Good morning” as we pass a stranger on the trail or to smile at a coworker on the way to the coffee bar. It costs extra energy to wave a “thanks” when a car lets us cross the busy street.

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I read the following article a few weeks ago:

Sam Altman Admits That Saying “Please” and “Thank you” to ChatGPT is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computer Power.

If we believe that the physical world echoes the spiritual, that body and soul work in tandem, intertwined,

then perhaps we can view this article as a sort of “proof” (if you will) that our instincts were right all along:

it costs to be kind.

But also, it costs to be cruel. If people ended their AI queries with, “Answer me, or else!” or with an expletive, this would also millions in computing power.

“If kindness and cruelty both cost something… what wouldn’t cost?” I wondered. What is absence of either kindness or cruelty?

Apathy. Indifference. Cold transaction.

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It costs less to be less.

When we give nothing, we make no impact.

When we spend nothing there is no investment.

No voice - no echo. Nothingness.

I can think of a few “moral stories” or “moral warnings” in light of this reality of kindness “costing” us. There are many more than these two - comment with some of your own, if you please.

A moral warning.

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Did you notice a particular word in the article title?

Waste.

Not just “cost” - but waste.

So our friendly reminder that “Kindness costs nothing” ever-so-gradually shifts to,

“It costs to be kind. Indeed… it is wasteful to be kind.”

If energy concerns increase for the world, and if it saves “millions in computing power” to choose apathy or cold transaction over simple “Please and thank you” - then the new precedence of society (encouraged by the crats) will be that:

Saving energy (being merely transactional) will be “more humane” than the alternatives.

“How is it more humane?”

Well, if we are wasting our computing power on civilities and niceties, then we are draining our power grid and creating poverty, damaging the Earth, etc.

So clearly, if you are a truly kind human being - a humane human - you won’t be saying “Thank you”… unless you don’t care about the people starving in XYZ 3rd-World Country, of course.

I hope this is just a writer’s hyperbolic imagining.

Now the moral story… more like a happy realization.

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If computing power is so noticeably affected by such small factors as please and thank you, and if we accept that being kind costs us energy (rather than trying to convince ourselves it doesn’t, and suffer the cognitive dissonance created by the lie),

then imagine the spiritual investments of such “costs” of kindness, of love.

A tree cannot grow without the clouds giving rain. Fruit then lavishes the branches.

A potter cannot mold a bowl without the land yielding its clay, the stream its water, the artist his gentle motions. The bowl delights the patron with every use.

A calf cannot grow strong without the mother cow giving milk. The calf grows into a cow.

A leader cannot inspire without the cost of his presence and availability, without the cost of his breath and the beat of his heart to say, “You can do this.”

A child does not laugh without the energy of a joke. Liveliness is scattered to all who hear.

Creating costs energy - a lot of energy.

Which also means a lot of reverberation. A lot of growth.

Energy creates energy.

Eternal God is the Source. Where is the energy crisis?

So when we cannot help but feel that being kind costs, I think it is time we accept that it’s true. But that is merely a fact, not a “good or bad” by itself.

And costliness is not synonymous with wastefulness.

Energy cost is not a problem when Jesus Christ is our Light, Water, and Manna.

So let us recklessly love.

Let us be recklessly kind.

Let it “cost” whatever it costs.

And draw from the Deep.

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