I am struck by both the insults that politicians often hurl at each other on congress and by what seems to be a growing general aggressiveness in the society in which we live. It is not easy to determine if such a phenomenon is objectively increasing, that is, if it is growing, or if it is more a matter of a perhaps more acute sensitivity of mine. However, this public or social tension is related to another phenomenon that many of us will have noticed, and that is a growing friendliness in casual personal relationships: the polite greeting to the neighbor while waiting for the elevator, the attention to the pedestrian who asks confusedly for directions, or even the cordial word to the beggar on the usual route.

I don't know if any scholars have noticed this phenomenon, but I believe that at least in my city and in my neighborhood the cause of this change of attitude has been its growing internationalization thanks to the immigration of the last decade: now Chinese, Pakistanis, Turks and Moroccans distribute the stores and bars, while a good issue of its users are Slavs, Poles, Romanians or Africans working in industry or construction. When I used to go to London years ago I was impressed by the motley international crowd in the busy Oxford Street: now we have that micro-world in a good part of the streets of many Spanish cities and that probably forces us to treat each other with much more respect and deference because we know each other much less.

test In contrast to all this, it is in short distances, in family life, in conjugal intimacy, in the attention between parents and children, in the relationship with people who work in the same office eight hours a day and have been doing so for ten years, in the care of the sick, the elderly or the disabled, and in so many other closed spaces where living together can sometimes become a living hell. For me, kindness over short distances means smiling, listening and caressing. These are three human behaviors that require very little effort and can radically change the quality of our lives.

The smile. It is a pity to undervalue the smile, since it is one of the most typical features of the human being. Ludwig Wittgenstein - for many the most profound philosopher of the 20th century - incidentally noted in an obscure passage of the Philosophical Investigations that "a smiling mouth smiles only on a human face". With these words Wittgenstein asserted that smiling requires a human face to give meaning to the smile, but perhaps he also suggests that a face is only fully human when it smiles. Taking the time to smile work is an apparently simple way in which everyone can make this world of ours a little more human and thus also make their own lives and the lives of those around them more human.

Listening. How many people rightly complain that no one listens to them. In order to listen, one has to give up the security of one's own opinion - even if one has more experience or authority - and doubt oneself without any qualms. Very probably the other person will be right or, in any case, what is important is what he/she says and not what you can say. To understand the other person, we need to learn from him or her. At least, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "to be with someone, to listen to them without looking at the clock and without expecting results, teaches us something about love". Patiently listening to those we love is the best way to cultivate that relationship, even if we have heard a thousand times before what they want to tell us.

The caress. As human beings, our souls are skin-deep. As Paul Valery wrote in The Marine Cemetery: "The skin is the deepest thing in man". How many times a misunderstanding, an argument, a displeasure with that other person we love is relegated to oblivion simply with a kind caress, with a kiss. There is no need for words; rather, there are plenty of them. Children, the sick and the elderly know this well, because they know that we humans are not only rational animals, but that, above all, we are dependent on others. A caress or a kiss is the best testimony of an effective connection.

It is not very difficult to be friendly in the short distance, but you have to try. The Castilian language has wisely distinguished between "familiarity", which is the plainness, simplicity and confidence in the attention that we all like, and "familiarities", which are those gestures or attitudes of excessive or inappropriate confidence in the attention that bother us all. Smiling, listening and caressing are a real way to make our coexistence much more pleasant and friendly. If they become commonplace, they can make the often gray everyday life of family or work life become a joyful and even amusing reality.