Little Tea

It doesn’t take a lot to change the world. It’s simple math.

A few years ago I was running a screenwriting workshop in Auckland. The brilliant Kathryn Burnett was teaching and I was sorting the morning tea out in the kitchen. Also happening in the venue was a Catholic workshop for engaged couples. Apparently Catholic priests are the most knowledgeable and best informed to give guidance on living as a married couple. Anyway…

What was interesting was watching how the soon-to-be-married couples handled the simple scenario of Morning Tea. The woman who was sorting their biscuits and so on and I started a game of guessing how long they’d last based purely on how they interacted together in this small microcosm.

The math is simple. If the sum total of the Joy you create is greater than the misery or drama you cause then you are making the world a better place, even if only incrementally.

Some of the couples hadn’t quite got the coordination of who got the biscuits and who made the coffee but they showed willing. We gave them good odds. Some couples got their own tea and biscuits. We gave them even odds. The couple that both left their cups outside on the picnic table for someone else to pick up for them, well, we gave them maybe six months. Tops.

A painting that brings a viewer a moment of joy is making the world a better place. A poem that enchants, a song that lightens a heart is making the world a better place. Breakfast in bed. A plumber who shows up on time; a courier who delivers safely. Small things but incremental.

There was this one guy, this one husband-to-be, who worked out that the biscuits I’d set out for the screenwriters were better than the selection offered by the church. I offer no comment on any deeper metaphysical implications of this. So he kinda casually wandered over to our table to see if maybe no-one would mind if he had a biscuit that wasn’t strictly from the table he was supposed to be at. The woman serving them leaned over to me and said: “She’s going to have to watch that one like a hawk…”

The couple we gave the best odds to made a game of it. They assessed the situation, conferred – giggling – and one took on the making of two cups of coffee while the other hunter/gathered biscuits. They found simple joy in providing small treats for each other.

Then all the starving screenwriters all came stampeding out of their session and headed straight for the biscuits and we’ve never been invited back again.