My husband and I have always been perplexed by whether we are empathic or empathetic. According to the spell-check function on any word processing program, both terms are acceptable. Either way, is it something we all experience?
Feeling empathy is a sign that our frontal lobes are working properly. Even prior to birth, our nervous systems begin the process of 'wiring' synaptic pathways according to our experiences. The multitudes of kisses we receive as infants wire us to be caring. Seeing or not seeing our parents show affection, concern, nurturing children and animals will have taught us to care... or not to care.
New research has shown that we continue developing our forebrains well into our twenties.
Perhaps the 'lower' the life form we show empathy for, the higher our empathic abilities.
Recently, in our early morning haste, while contending with wind and ice, I accidentally caused my son to step on one of our baby cedar trees and its central trunk snapped off, much to both of our dismay. The whole way to school, we talked about how bad we felt that it had happened and even though we forgave ourselves, we learned a valuable lesson about how haste indeed does make waste. If this had happened even a year ago, I would have beaten myself up about it for much more time, but the older we get, the more willing we are to let go of our disappointments. Maybe we realize that instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we should concern ourselves with feeling for others. It seems that some of us grow more empathic as we age, while others come into this world feeling everything.
My son, for example, attaches a feeling/thinking persona to a variety of things. Like many five year olds, he insists his toys come alive when we're not looking. I think Toy Story is great, but perhaps it takes empathy about as far as we need it to in regard to non-living things.
But his concern for living things, I don't mind. In fact, it has generated some funny stories.
Last summer, when my family was arriving back home after a nice walk, we noticed that our cat Reishi was chasing a mouse around on the street. It seemed he was either terrible at his trade or he was simply torturing, er, playing out his prey. His sister Tulsi joined in and they took turns chasing it and batting at the poor helpless mouse. It's not easy for highly empathic humans to watch the animal kingdom in action. Then, Tulsi's daughter Honey joined in and, like younger animals will do, she put their game to an end. She swiftly captured and killed the mouse. As she ran off with it, my son exclaimed, "Hey, Honey, that's not fair! You have to share the mouse with the other cats!"
Though my husband and I were relieved, our son was quite upset at the turn of events, because Honey wouldn't share the mouse. Is this because he's more empathic or simply more imaginative? I'll give him the imaginative part, for sure. But I actually do have to be careful how I parent my cats because my son will give me a lecture about how sad the kitty is that I took the touque away from her (even though I was determined to not have her steal yet another pom-pom! I have to sometimes show concern for non-living things as well! In my department, that includes new hats!)
I think we all created empathic worlds of resonance with living entities and non-living personifications when we were children - even those of us who didn't grow up with television. I think a classic way of demonstrating our empathy is through performance art. Conveying feeling and process - through a play, a movie, a soap opera, a controversial talk show, a sit-com, or a children's program - are ways we can create an evolution of consciousness. As I said last week, sharing our story can empower others.
Indeed, there are only so many ways to see life through someone else's eyes. It may not be literally possible to see through another person's eyes, without the help of a special gift from God or at the very least, secret CIA remote-viewing training, but putting ourselves in another person's shoes and walking a mile is also sort of intrusive and inconvenient.
Literal humour aside, walking a mile in someone else's shoes is what has kept humanity on the planet this long. Empathy is what created universal health care, for example. Empathy will save us from ourselves, because it's the first step to empowering compassion.
As W. H. Auden says, "We must love one another or die."
I believe in the circle of life, in cycles and in death as well. I don't believe we want to run ourselves off of the planet, but we may just do so if we don't purposefully cultivate collective compassion.
So, before casting judgement on another person, first put yourself in his or her shoes. Maybe she's simply being like the cat, who, upon an imaginary interview, would reveal that she wasn't so much being greedy with the mouse as she was just trying to have mercy on a lower life form. At least that's the stuff of great children's literature.
Whether it comes naturally or if we have to practice, empathy is a tool for making better decisions about how we live our daily lives as well as how we approach our government and our culture. (Oh, and don't worry, no cats were actually interviewed for the making of this column.)
