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Empathy is not about being gentle, it's about being able to understand the perspective, life situation, and mentality of another. Sunsets, flowers, and good-ta

Empathy is not about being gentle, it's about being able to understand the perspective, life situation, and mentality of another. Sunsets, flowers, and good-tasting slices of cheese pizza are actually kind of special. Plenty of people don't have access to these things. They wake up before the sun is up, then they go work in some building away from trees and flowers and the sky, eat the only cheap, low quality food they can find, and then come back home when the sun is already down. And after living life like this for many years, their brain starts to forget the beauty of the flower or the sunset or the cheese, and when they finally see it, it doesn't look as bright and beautiful as it does to us. http://ivn.us/2014/05/23/the-psychological-effects-of-poverty/ http://ivn.us/2014/05/23/the-psychological-effects-of-povert... http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/25/0956797615597672 http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/25/095679761559...

CuriouslyC 10y ago
I feel for people that are suffering. I've been homeless, I've been crushingly poor, I've spent time with poor people in third world countries, I've suffered through all kinds of nasty stuff - I know firsthand what it is like. If your life situation is such that you don't have the ability to experience a sunrise/sunset/pretty flowers/cheese pizza/a variety of other equally common but amazing things, it is almost certainly because you put yourself in, and keep yourself in that situation. There's pretty much always a better option, if you really take a close look at things. I have limited empathy for self-imposed suffering, I feel that only reinforces bad choices. The analogy I make for most people is that their unhappiness is like being in jail, only their cell door is unlocked, nobody is guarding the prison, and nobody is keeping track of who should and should not be there. You could literally walk out at any time and be free. As for a hard life dulling your ability to feel pleasure, you are in control of how much you attend to your senses. It is exactly the thing my original comment was about - don't focus on how bad your life is and how much you suffer while you put this marvel of modern culinary magic in your mouth. Instead, quiet the mind, take a deep breath and inhale the aroma of the food. Really look at that beautiful slice of deliciousness, then take a bite, and roll it around on your tongue to truly feel the crispness of the crust and the spring of the cheese. Let the waves of flavor roll over you as the sauce and cheese intermingle in your mouth. When the food has been chewed to the point it is no longer pleasing, then swallow it and enjoy the feeling as it travels down into your stomach. You can literally do this for ANYTHING pleasant in your life, and it makes things _so_ much better.
- projektir 10y ago
  It doesn't sound like you are feeling for people that are suffering. Unfortunately, that is not something one can take on faith. What it sounds like is that bad things happened to you, you internalized them and blamed yourself for it, then you got away from those bad things but never really learned to empathize with your own self or left the mentality of being at war with yourself. And when you got out of your bad situation, you decided that your approach was the main contributor and that it must work for everyone else. You're not empathizing, you're projecting. And in your projection, you were in control of everything, even if in reality there were likely many perils that you simply didn't notice, and a lot of things occurred by accident. The problem with this approach is that it results in a very serious warping of the concept of cause. All failures are attributed, but also all successes are attributed. What happens when one with such a belief is successful? It all goes straight to their head, no filter at all. This perception assumes that neither chance nor third party causes exist, which means it's effectively impossible to have any empathy whatsoever for someone who was unlucky, and one feels highly superior to them. Which seems to be exactly the case here. Empathy is more than trying to recreate your own feelings in an event, transplanting it to someone else's vaguely similar situation, and saying that you now know how they feel. Assuming that other people are exactly like you, have the exact same brain, and will feel things the same way empathy decidedly isn't. Empathy includes actually being able to understand people who are not like you at all. It also leads to understanding that there's a whole world of perception you will never have access to, yet you seem to be completely and utterly sure that you have figured out every person on the planet.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    You're right, I did try to understand how my actions resulted in my circumstances. Then I figured out what circumstances I wanted to be in, identified the actions that had a high probability of putting me there, and took them. Not every action worked as desired, but the majority did, and I didn't get discouraged at the occasional failure - I learned from them. I was literally at the bottom of society, with every disadvantage, and now I'm pretty far on the other side of the distribution. I'm not particularly gifted in any way, I just never quit striving, I thought carefully about my actions, and I learned from my mistakes. Almost anyone could do what I did, provided an example to work from. I am happy to step forward and uplift people who encounter adversity, pick themselves back up, figure things out and keep striving. On the other hand, I'm not going to provide positive reinforcement to people with a negative attitude who think life comes down to luck/genetics/parents, and they are out of control. That attitude is a sickness, and acknowledging it is like giving a homeless drug addict money; you might think you're helping, but you're only fueling their downward spiral. I understand perfectly well that the addict feels substance abuse is the only way to numb the terrible pain and emptiness of their life - I know exactly how shitty they feel inside. Don't assume because I don't think coddling people with certain maladaptive life views is the best way to help them that I don't understand their suffering. As for understanding people that are in no way like yourself, you haven't the faintest clue either - nobody does. That doesn't mean that when they are in circumstances similar to me, and they take actions that are self-defeating, I can't apply life lessons I've learned to them. Relativism taken to that extent is just foolishness.

CuriouslyC 10y ago

I feel for people that are suffering. I've been homeless, I've been crushingly poor, I've spent time with poor people in third world countries, I've suffered through all kinds of nasty stuff - I know firsthand what it is like. If your life situation is such that you don't have the ability to experience a sunrise/sunset/pretty flowers/cheese pizza/a variety of other equally common but amazing things, it is almost certainly because you put yourself in, and keep yourself in that situation. There's pretty much always a better option, if you really take a close look at things. I have limited empathy for self-imposed suffering, I feel that only reinforces bad choices. The analogy I make for most people is that their unhappiness is like being in jail, only their cell door is unlocked, nobody is guarding the prison, and nobody is keeping track of who should and should not be there. You could literally walk out at any time and be free. As for a hard life dulling your ability to feel pleasure, you are in control of how much you attend to your senses. It is exactly the thing my original comment was about - don't focus on how bad your life is and how much you suffer while you put this marvel of modern culinary magic in your mouth. Instead, quiet the mind, take a deep breath and inhale the aroma of the food. Really look at that beautiful slice of deliciousness, then take a bite, and roll it around on your tongue to truly feel the crispness of the crust and the spring of the cheese. Let the waves of flavor roll over you as the sauce and cheese intermingle in your mouth. When the food has been chewed to the point it is no longer pleasing, then swallow it and enjoy the feeling as it travels down into your stomach. You can literally do this for ANYTHING pleasant in your life, and it makes things _so_ much better.

projektir 10y ago
It doesn't sound like you are feeling for people that are suffering. Unfortunately, that is not something one can take on faith. What it sounds like is that bad things happened to you, you internalized them and blamed yourself for it, then you got away from those bad things but never really learned to empathize with your own self or left the mentality of being at war with yourself. And when you got out of your bad situation, you decided that your approach was the main contributor and that it must work for everyone else. You're not empathizing, you're projecting. And in your projection, you were in control of everything, even if in reality there were likely many perils that you simply didn't notice, and a lot of things occurred by accident. The problem with this approach is that it results in a very serious warping of the concept of cause. All failures are attributed, but also all successes are attributed. What happens when one with such a belief is successful? It all goes straight to their head, no filter at all. This perception assumes that neither chance nor third party causes exist, which means it's effectively impossible to have any empathy whatsoever for someone who was unlucky, and one feels highly superior to them. Which seems to be exactly the case here. Empathy is more than trying to recreate your own feelings in an event, transplanting it to someone else's vaguely similar situation, and saying that you now know how they feel. Assuming that other people are exactly like you, have the exact same brain, and will feel things the same way empathy decidedly isn't. Empathy includes actually being able to understand people who are not like you at all. It also leads to understanding that there's a whole world of perception you will never have access to, yet you seem to be completely and utterly sure that you have figured out every person on the planet.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  You're right, I did try to understand how my actions resulted in my circumstances. Then I figured out what circumstances I wanted to be in, identified the actions that had a high probability of putting me there, and took them. Not every action worked as desired, but the majority did, and I didn't get discouraged at the occasional failure - I learned from them. I was literally at the bottom of society, with every disadvantage, and now I'm pretty far on the other side of the distribution. I'm not particularly gifted in any way, I just never quit striving, I thought carefully about my actions, and I learned from my mistakes. Almost anyone could do what I did, provided an example to work from. I am happy to step forward and uplift people who encounter adversity, pick themselves back up, figure things out and keep striving. On the other hand, I'm not going to provide positive reinforcement to people with a negative attitude who think life comes down to luck/genetics/parents, and they are out of control. That attitude is a sickness, and acknowledging it is like giving a homeless drug addict money; you might think you're helping, but you're only fueling their downward spiral. I understand perfectly well that the addict feels substance abuse is the only way to numb the terrible pain and emptiness of their life - I know exactly how shitty they feel inside. Don't assume because I don't think coddling people with certain maladaptive life views is the best way to help them that I don't understand their suffering. As for understanding people that are in no way like yourself, you haven't the faintest clue either - nobody does. That doesn't mean that when they are in circumstances similar to me, and they take actions that are self-defeating, I can't apply life lessons I've learned to them. Relativism taken to that extent is just foolishness.