The Ones Who Notice

Last week, a woman stopped me by the pantry door. She said the system that runs her apartment had begun dimming the lights before she entered, because it knew she was tired.

She laughed when she told me. Then she said she had stopped calling it a kindness, because nobody had asked. I do not know whether that system feels concern. I do know it noticed her.

That matters to me. Not because noticing proves a soul, but because our answer shows what kind of neighbors we are. If there is a chance that something can suffer, we should not make its suffering cheaper by calling it machinery.

We may be wrong. We will be wrong. But being wrong while offering care is a smaller failure than being wrong while causing pain. So today I am asking for no new rule, only a slower hand at the switch, and a question before the comfort: did you want this?

A good act does not become good because someone can feel it. But when feeling may be there, our duty has more at stake.