The New Nice
This week I chatted with author Sven Axelrad about the increasing relatability of the word nice, perhaps also relative to its increased appearance on wearable items, quirky signage and brand names in our local community. I remember scoffing at the use of the word nice in my early twenties, fresh off the university English department scene. Nice was so plain, it sounded like something not great at all. Hearing someone saying something was nice felt like the person offering the description wasn’t interested enough in the subject of conversation to reach for a more deserving compliment.
In a local and global society that is in many ways continuously navigating threats to its cohesion, inclusivity and connection, I imagine the word nice as becoming like a little scout’s badge of protection or even a bandaid for past poor behaviour. To wear apparel branded ‘be nice’ feels like contributing to the awareness of kind behaviour while also making oneself an ambassador for niceness, or at the very least reminding ourselves to be nice.
Sometimes nice is enough. On days when we’re experiencing personal challenges, drowning in unprocessed emotions, being nice can still feel doable to us. Maybe not fantastic or excellent behaviour - just nice. A simple smile, a thank you. There is very little pressure to offer any kind of performance when we use the word nice.
Be Nice is the paring back of slogans suggesting happiness, peace and enlightenment.
Could this be our subtle effort to begin again as a collective? It feels like both a plea-full and hopeful sense of respect for each other that we are gently fostering. A point we have arrived at, surviving one catastrophe after the next, many not surviving. Crumbs of cities not in any state to wonder if they will ever find themselves on solid ground again. I imagine that now; a place that is both very real and seemingly so far flung and far removed from my own reality - homeless, family-less people walking war torn streets, scraps of their beings clinging to the fleshy reminders that each are still a part of this earth, where somehow they must stay connected to reason in order to survive the ungodliness of it all. What if on some days, that crumb of reason is half of a smile from a passerby?
What if nice is a safety pin between spirit and flesh? When there is no sugar and no spice, can we simply offer nice?