I can already tell that I am going to write a ton of posts on empathy. I’ll save my full personal experience for another day’s post (or hell, a whole month’s worth), but the short version is that I think I had some strong sociopathic tendencies until about 10 years ago. For me, becoming empathetic towards others took first-hand observation of the struggles of people I came to care about, and then strong human connections to draw similarities with others who were also struggling.
From first-hand experience, I can tell you that the capacity for feeling empathy holds the ultimate power to change a person. And as it turns out, we will need to change a lot of people if we’re going to make this society thing work.
The funny thing about spreading and teaching empathy is that it requires having empathy for the prospective student. Having empathy for semi-sociopaths is hard; I struggle with it frequently now, even after walking in those shoes for so long.
But it has to be done. Like all great endeavors, it’s unlikely we’ll get it done in a lifetime.
Oh well. Let’s get to work.
