> thus it requires strenuous effort to empathise But does it? The strenuous effort part? Empathy doesn’t require strenuous effort, it can’t be that hard to rel

> thus it requires strenuous effort to empathise But does it? The strenuous effort part? Empathy doesn’t require strenuous effort, it can’t be that hard to relate to the core struggles of anyone you don’t know yet, surely you’d have to be some sort of magician to empathise at the granular level even with someone that looks like you (not sure how relevant that is but seems to be important to you), comes from the same school and now lives on the same block of flat as you do, as they could have gone through life having the complete adverse experience from yous, but at the core level, as long as you’re not some sort of social anosognostic, it’s not that hard to relate to what complete strangers from obscure environments feel/want/think like. This is easily tested by simply taking a trip to some remote place you don’t speak the language and you’ll see how quickly empathy kicks in and how soon ‘conversations’ are happening where you totally relate to what they are going through perhaps not as much as they can relate to what you’re going through you lunatic explorer of the subconscious. Then with time as you learn their language, well, fuck it, as long as you are wearing some shade of grey you will fit right in where you are right now and wear your mask.