More Empathy Please...

Somewhere I picked up this notion that empathy and sympathy are distinct, and that empathy is more sophisticated and highly rare. Basically sympathy is the ability to appreciate the emotional state of another, with reference to similar emotions once experienced. For example, you see someone crying over a loss and you remember a similar loss and how sad that made you feel, and so you are able to understand the other's emotional state. Some adults are, for example, sympathetic to the pleas of children because those adults remember what it was like to feel like a child.

Empathy, however, is not necessarily based on commonality. It is an act of imagination, whereby you try to feel what someone else might be feeling, even despite a lack of personal experience. The greatest actors, for example, are masters of empathy. Meryl Streep was never a holocaust survivor, and yet she was able to endow Sophie with the emotional power of a woman who chose between life and death, for herself and others. Streep is so empathetic that she was able to humanize the devilish Editor in the Devil wears Prada.

Being the nerd that I am, I checked the dictionary. Webster describes empathy as "the capacity for participation in another's feelings or ideas." Or "the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it." Sympathy springs from the french word for "having common feelings." Sympathy refers to a "unity of harmony in action or effects...an inclination to think or feel alike...emotional or intellectual accord."

So sympathy is like silver, and empathy like gold: both are valuable and precious. I'm not denigrating sympathy. It's the core of community life: common emotional understandings and values make civil life and common law possible. But empathy is essential when different types of people come together. And I'm not just talking about multicultural societies, I'm referring to diversity within families. Men must live with women, conservative fathers with wives and children itching for change, introverts with extroverts, cautious moms with daring children, etc.

The Golden Rule is perhaps the basic block of Western/Christian morality. Treat others as you would like to be treated. I'm convinced, however, that's not enough. Adherence to the Golden Rule often leads to resentment, and frustrated expectations of reciprocity. It assumes that what one wants is also what others want, and that is not so. My mom (and I imagine, many other moms) once said, perplexed: I did everything for my children, and you're not happy. I had often asked for one thing, and been given another. I had asked for what I wanted or needed, and was given what the giver believed I should want or need, based on their wants and needs.

I remember when I was 11, I once received a gift from an older relative of $10 shampoo, which today probably doesn't seem like an odd gift for a tween, but back then shocked me. She also treated me to expensive skin analysis, even though I had smooth, clear skin. That same year, I bought black licorice jelly beans for all my friends, and was shocked to discover that most people hated black licorice. That year, my study of empathy was launched. Yes, these are silly examples. How about the immigrant parent who works two jobs, so that the quiet, artistic son can go to medical or business school, and become a success someday?

I imagine empathetic failure is the crux of most family/marital problems. Not to mention international imbroglios.

So how do we know what someone feels, without reference to our own feelings and ideas, i.e., how do we experience empathy? For starters, we listen. Most of the time people will say what they mean, however cryptically. Often, if we've established a pattern of listening, people will speak their truth. It's tempting to think: they don't really know what they want/they're wrong, etc., especially if the speaker is younger and/or less experienced, but why assume that we know better, given our extremely limited knowledge of their situation? That always blows my mind: how quickly most people assume they know better or have good advice to give.

Here's what I think: each of us has had years of experience living our lives, feeling our feelings, perceiving those around us, and adjusting to our place in the world. We are all experts on ourselves. Sure, our views are often distorted. Sometimes we do want the wrong things. And, true, many people seem woefully un-self-aware. But, ultimately, I am THE expert about me, and you are THE expert about you. And generally, we don't know what's best for another individual, though we might have suggestions and much help to offer. Really, how on earth could another know what's best compared to the person who has spent their whole life learning about themselves, consciously and unconsciously?

From a religious standpoint, each person has a soul, and that separateness should be respected, even as we realize our common bond as humans consecrated with souls. Practically speaking, if we want to use someone to further our goals, empathy might best be avoided: learning to feel what another feels might distract us from doing what we need to do to get what we want. If we truly allow ourselves to feel another's pain, and experience their desire, we might not manipulate them into sublimating their goals in favor of ours.

It's easy to see why empathy is so rare. But, the best kind of love requires empathy.

Power Tools

For my 38th birthday, I bought myself a Craftsman power drill (19.2 volts) with two batteries that charge in an hour. Because what good is power if it doesn't last, right?

When I asked several handy, practical friends which power screwdriver to get, the first question they asked was: who's it for? Me, I responded, somewhat surprised. Is it so odd for a woman to want power tools for her birthday? There are plenty of girly things to do with a power tool, like drilling holes for studs to hook heavy picture frames and full-length mirrors. And assembling simple furniture and shelves to store and display the brass and turquoise jewelry I craft. Yes, traditionally my husband has been the one to assemble furniture, but as his career has grown more demanding, I've assumed more of the supposed manly jobs. And really, how complicated is a power driver? Sewing machines seem more complicated, and yet women have managed to use them for a century or two.