“I saw old men die at 90 without telling their brother they loved them because of some forgotten insult from 40 years before. Talk. Listen. Listen more than you talk.” ANTONIO DI DIO continues his Brief History of Kindness series. 

The quality of mercy is divine. Beautiful, perfect words, right? 

Did Shakespeare write that phrase as an agent of a higher power, infused by the ineffable, while sitting on the loo in Stratford scribbling poetry and iambic pentameter that delivered, in an unusual way perhaps, a message from the Universe to the rest of us? 

Or was he just a really gifted wordsmith who turned a nice phrase, so that pretentious prats like me, centuries later, would over analyse his words to death?

We all do it, you know. Sporting legend has it that just before the last ball before stumps one night (I was watching it on TV), Warnie marched down to the keeper and they became animated about some deep tactical manoeuvre. 

The batsmen, hitherto playing well, got flummoxed and got himself out on that very finale. Warnie gleefully told the press that he had slowly and deliberately walked down to his mate and spent minutes talking about nothing more useful than what they were going to have for dinner. The mystery, genius and strategy was, of course, all in the poor batter’s head. 

Sometimes a banana is just a banana (or it isn’t, like when Big Al Hitchcock thanked his Freudian therapist in the final scene of the 1948 classic, North by Northwest – trust me – go watch the fillum. It’s so fatuously obvious that I had to cross my legs and say a Hail Mary when Cary Grant and his companion entered the train tunnel). 

Kindness, we know, is rescuing people from others. If you see your sister getting bored pantsless at a party by me describing how Mozart is better than Beethoven but neither will ever beat Adam Gilchrist on the tonk in his prime, you will have saved the world and her sanity – a little white lie harming no one.

But if your same sister is paralysed with angst about some throwaway comment her work supervisor said on Thursday week ago, crushed by lost confidence, she needs you to enact that exact same rescue – from herself. 

Her negative self-talk, snowballing fear and the baseless, pointless self-criticism it leads to is far more dangerous than me boring her about how Warnie was better than Murali (he was, you know. Mr Editor, do you need 10,000 words on your desk about it by Monday? I’m on the job) and neither of them are cooler than the Hulk.

So how do you help her? Talking helps. My Sicilian family used to talk constantly (61 per cent unemployment will do that to you). The Aussie style of inherited stiff upper lip I used to love till I saw how much that was politely unspoken was so unhelpful. 

I saw old men die at 90 without telling their brother they loved them because of some forgotten insult from 40 years before. Talk. Listen. Listen more than you talk. Give your perspective and experience without judgement or patronising. 

Also without that other useless bug, certainty. You’re not certain about it at all. The next person who tells me they “know exactly how I feel” about anything I’ve shared will get a powerfully raised eyebrow straight between the eyes (vicious, I know). Certainty isn’t what she needs anyway. It matters not if you’re right or wrong, only that you care. Only that you want to protect them from the most vicious, horrible critic she or anyone else has ever had – herself.

If you improve her perspective, or even just show you care enough to awkwardly start a conversation about how much you care – her burden may be relieved to a point where it drops below critical.

You never know. One day your sister might be batting in a Test against two jokers messing with her head. And she’ll know to stick to her guns and keep doing what got her successful enough to be there today.

Because of the talk you had with her, she’ll know the quality of mercy, and it, like Warne’s flippers and wrong ‘uns, is truly divine. 

I’ll tell you a secret: I never met Shakespeare or Warnie, Mozart or Madonna, Madame Curie or Margaret Atwood or a thousand geniuses, but I know every one of them could have had improvements in their lives – just like we all do – when somebody is kind enough, brave enough, to ask us how we are, and listen, and rescue us from ourselves. 

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader and nerd. There is more of his Kindness on citynews.com.au