I have a never-ending supply of kindness and understanding for humanity.

Kindness has a daily shape. Most people have plenty of it at nine in the morning and very little at six on a Thursday, with a child asking the same question for the fifth time.

That isn't a character flaw. It's closer to a battery.

The supply does refill, which is the part worth holding onto. Sleep, a walk, twenty minutes where nobody needs anything — and it comes back, reliably, without you doing anything clever.

Which makes lasting kindness less a matter of resolve than of noticing when you're running low, and not making any important decisions about anyone in that hour.