What is Project Mild Kindness?

Project Mild Kindness is a a vague attempt to use Blurred Reality as a force for good in the world.When starting up a business it is hard to find opportunities to turn it into an ethical company - if you are struggling to anticipate the amount of money available it is hard to know how much you can reasonably set aside for all things good and proper.

Therefore, a bit of ingenuity was required to try and set up something good. That is where Project Mild Kindness came in. If we couldn't initially afford a charitable donation, or a computer powered by wind, or canvasses shipped by foot - maybe we could instead donate a bit of our time into something we believed in and set up ourself.

What does that mean though?

To put things simply, Project Mild Kindness aims to reward and encourage - well - mild kindness. It works like this:

If, in the course of daily life, we encounter someone who is just a little bit nice when they don't need to be, we offer them a free portrait. Now this can be any form of niceness - it can be something as small as a friendly smile, a happy apology for bumping into you (especially if not their fault), someone being extremely helpfull, or someone who is just.. well.. nice. Admittedly it is quite an undefined criteria, but it is whatever strikes us as being a refreshing dose of pleasant and world-enhancing kindness.

At the moment we are aiming to produce one free portrait a month, although this may grow as and when the business does.

Can I tell you about something I've done to get a free portrait?

Of course we would encourage you to do small acts of mild kindness as often as possible, but our system does not work like that unfortunately.

The people we approach (and we do literally approach them, in the street, right after being inspired to pick them) really have to be unaware of any potential gains for their good work - it is just simply the way they are. It is very easy these days, with the scare mongering we read in the press, to be suspicious and fearfull out there in the big wide world. Unfortunately this can often translate itself into coldness, defensiveness and rudeness. Those people who go out there with the attitude that every stranger is a good person who deserves to be treated without suspicion or judgement will rarely get rewarded for their positive attitude, so we thought we'd do a tiny something to help the odd person out! It will hopefully just encourage their unassuming niceness, and is a small way of trying to reinforce the notion that being nice will have positive consequences.

If you want to get a free portrait, just increase your attitude of kindness towards the world. Internalise it so it becomes you. Granted, you have probably less chance of being spotted by one of us in this act of kindness than you do of winning the lottery - but why not do it anyway?

This sounds stupid. Is it stupid?

Yes.

How can I get involved then, if you won't give me free pictures?

I suppose I'd encourage people to start rewarding small acts of kindness across the country. Do whatever you can - offer them a drink, money, friendship, love, a cuddle, marriage, goods - whatever suits your means. Obviously just be unassuming and polite about it, we don't want a legion of people scared to do nice in case they get harassed by a maniac offering them a sandwich.

Any positivity you do spread we would be interested to hear about. E-mail us at blog@blurredreality.co.uk to let us know what you've been up to.

Where can I read more?

We will be updating the blog with our progress on Project Mild Kindness, so keep checking in there. The posts are categorised so just look for those posted under Project Mild Kindness and you should be well on your way.