Core Value - Empathy

Empathy feels these thoughts; your hurt is in my heart,

your loss is in my prayers, your sorrow is in my soul,

and your tears are in my eyes.

--William Arthur Ward

"This is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable:

the projection of itself into other lives.

This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity.

It is . . . the supreme epitome of the reaching out."

— Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist

Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature

Theologian and writer Henri J.M. Nouwen painted a marvelous word portrait of empathy in his book The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey when he wrote, "When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." Robert Louis Stevenson, many years earlier, knew about that which Nouwen would write about when he observed, “So long as we love we serve; So long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; And no one is useless while they have a friend.” Even earlier, Sophocles tapped into this same vein of thought writing, “One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.”

“Love is that enviable state that knows no envy or vanity,
only empathy and a longing to be greater than oneself”
-- Anita Roddick

The above paragraph seems almost dripping wet with the milk of human kindness, the risking of becoming vulnerable in order to reach out with a comforting hand and heart to another, who in the moment is also vulnerable. If empathy – that ability to in the moment nearly become the other – is such a golden virtue and quality of human emotion and understanding, then why is it not more readily practiced among members of the human community? You may recall our earlier conversation regarding “friendship,” at least from the perspective of the writer? Sharing empathy with another requires of the giver to demonstrate many of the traits attributed to friendship, especially the aspect of having to not expect the other to respond in a like manner. Friendship of which he spoke is not to be likened to a shallow puddle, easily persuaded by wind and quickly dried up by even a passive sun. Instead, the writer’s conception of friendship resembles the deep and often opaque pool, little disturbed by surface events, and always remaining a bit mysterious to all but the few who will explore its depths. Bertrand Russell knew of this type of friendship and understood how essential empathy and its related values were to the preservation of that relationship. Russell wrote, “Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding.”

"The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms.

The really important things are not houses and lands,

stocks and bonds, automobiles and real estate,

but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy,

mercy, love and faith.”

--Bertrand Russell

Pat Barker is probably getting very close to the mother lode of understanding the “why” of the question above when he suggests, "It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain." Centuries ago, Euripides observed, "When a good man is hurt all who would be called good must suffer with him." Perhaps many of us experience so much pain in our own lives we are already too depleted emotionally to do much for the other person, even if motivated to do so? Tenzin Gyatso, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, shared a Buddhist perspective on the topic, explaining, “From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and wants to avoid suffering. In this we are all the same.” Edith Wharton, in the character of Lily, addresses human pain, and more importantly it’s longing for the empathetic, restorative, response of another, in The House of Mirth. Wharton wrote, "As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath." How many of us at one time in our life or another, perhaps this very moment, can relate to Wharton’s Lily?

I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy—
we want empathy so badly. . . .
It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand
you without even liking you.
--Thomas A. Harris

Too often we look around and see ourselves but one of many empty vessels, longing to be filled by the outpouring of others, only to find ourselves smack in the middle of a desert of human emotion and feeling. We find ourselves surrounded, by the type of individuals Sir Edmund Burke identified in the line, “There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.” Even more unnerving is the possibility that Burke may in fact be speaking of us, as well as to us. Andre Gide provides an appropriate follow-up question to Burke’s comment noting, “"Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?" Perhaps we ourselves are too blunt emotionally to pick up on the pain and needs of others. For endless reasons untold, many of us are unable, or unwilling, to extend ourselves toward another. Sue Miller, I believe, identifies one of the obstacles to our expressing empathy in her book While I Was Gone, writing, "I felt the kind of desperation, I think, that cancels the possibility of empathy...that makes you unkind." Or, another, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry penned in The Little Prince, "I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious."

Recently, President Barack Obama stated, “We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.” President Obama’s comment may be right on-target as an observational response, but it doesn’t really tell us a great deal about the “why.” If we examine closely the reasons the President suggests displace empathy as goals for our lives, we detect that all are motivated by a fear of some description. Bertrand Russell gave what might have been a reasonable response to the President’s observation when he wrote, “Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”

"Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion.
When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems
and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others,
our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery
of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our
capacityfor connection - or compassionate action."
— Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence:
The New Science of Human Relationships

For those of us who hold empathy to be a most strategic human value, the quest to understand why there tends to be a shortage of something which should flow like a fountain from every individual’s heart and soul is of significant importance. Perhaps it is because of the apparent complexity of the whole empathy paradigm. Gloria Steinem once commented, “Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.” As Colin Gorman sees it, “Empathy is not a substitute for introspection. Stepping into someone else's shoes because yours don't fit means you still get to walk in ill-fitting shoes, you just don't get to own them.” Gorman’s comment may seem a little too “down-home” to be applied to Steinem’s suggestion, but, if you stop and think about it for a few moments, how radical it is to walk in someone else’s ill-fitting shoes, and then not even ending up owning them. We are not talking about quid pro quo here. We are talking about sacrifice, and that brings us back home to ourselves in a hurry.

In rationalizing the situation, the tendency is to meander back in the direction of putting the scales to our own pain and discomfort, and determine that instead of giving, we should be receiving. This is not an uncommon decision, but for some of us it becomes a dilemma if we allow ourselves to look beyond our own horizons. As James Baldwin writes, "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive." As a bit of an interlude, we believe it worthwhile to add another thought or two to that of Baldwin’s regarding the value of literature and other media sources in helping us to build perspective about the suffering of others and the need for us to take the risk to reach out to them. John Connolly wrote in The Book of Lost Things, "I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways...It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being."

Frederick Buechner, writing in Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary, addresses this challenge of reaching out to others even when we ourselves sense such a need, noting, "If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in." And, at this point, it would be wise to remember as Susan Kay suggests, "None of us can choose where we shall love..." You may be personally so blessed as to be the exception to Kay’s suggestion, but for most of us, Kay is probably hitting pretty close to home.

"Empathy is the love-fire of sweet remembrance
and shared understanding."
--John Eaton

Another possible response to the “why” question might be obstacles associated with the human intellect. According to the majority of scientists and psychologists, the human intellect, the power to think and reason, sets humans above the other animals on the planet. Whether you wish to agree with this line of thought is a personal choice. However, our intellect may in effect separate us from each other, as well as the other animals. Dean Koontz believes, “Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.” Our intellect, frequently combined with cultural biases, would also have one believe that showing the qualities of compassion are signs of weakness. Kahil Gibran refuted such thinking, suggesting the opposite to be true. He wrote, “Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” Daniel Goldman, contemporary guru of emotional intelligence, adds to the conversation his observation, “If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

A fallout resulting from the human intellectual response to contemporary demands on society is the concept of efficiency. Ask an accountant about what is important to the wellbeing of her business and the answer will likely be “billable hours.” When time invested is not paying the return expected then dissonance enters and true reasoning exits the scenario. This is not to say there is not a case for efficiency of our efforts, but as Stephen Covey recognizes, “Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people.” In a product-oriented world, Bonnie Jean Wasmund reminds us, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” To that train of thought, Scott Adams adds, “Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” The renowned theologian, and one-time Chaplin to the United States Congress, Peter Marshall would add to the mix the belief, “Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.” But, with these thoughts comes a caveat. Patricia Sun reminds us, “The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step.”

CNN reporter Anderson Cooper believes, “Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.” Cooper may, or may not, be accurate in his assessment that observed, or personal loss, engenders empathy in oneself. However, what about those who do not have those experiences? The question arises, “Is empathy an innate human attribute or one that is learned? Jacqui Rivait leans toward the latter, stating, “I don't believe that children are born with empathy. It is something they learn by seeing it modeled by others.” The ancient Greek poet and philosopher, Homer, also believe empathy to be a learned response, writing, "Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other's good, and melt at other's woe." Actress Meryl Streep considers empathy a gift, “The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”

"Sometimes I am asked by kids why

I condemn marijuana when I haven't tried it.

The greatest obstetricians in the world have never been pregnant."

--Art Linkletter

However one attains the ability to show empathy toward another, it is important that we assist children, and adults, in putting empathy into action. But, in helping the child to learn about empathy, we ourselves must be able to demonstrate the same toward the child. Alice Miller spoke to this notion stating, “Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.” Although we will save the topic of learning for another time, it does seem appropriate to remind ourselves that learning, true learning, does not travel down a one-way street! We must be able to engage fully in the process of learning with the child, otherwise we are more likely talking about indoctrination rather than learning. Kathrine Ellison believes that this learning begins very early in our adult-child relationship, noting, “Empathy frequently informs our earliest days with our infants as we try to figure out what they need, how to comfort and satisfy them.”

“We empathize-it's our chief way of learning.”
--John Gardner

Lydia Millet, in Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, believes instilling empathy in the developing child goes beyond conventional thought as it pertains to learning. Millet writes, "It is not learning we need at all. Individuals need learning but the culture needs something else, the pulse of light on the sea, the warm urge of huddling together to keep out the cold. We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep." Climbing the same ladder of social evolution, Betty Levin shares in the chapter “Polar Bears and Lemmings” in Origins of Story, "Children who find a single important life in the ordinary, unimportant, and unheroic are less likely to succumb to the human fallacy of us versus them." Yes, empathy requires of us humans a major social evolution, perhaps even a peaceful revolution, if we are to fulfill the wish of Anita Roddick: “I hope to leave my children a sense of empathy and pity and a will to right social wrongs.”

Actress Susan Sarandon believes, “When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.” What Susan doesn’t explain in that statement is the complexity of developing the empathy she speaks about. Remember the earlier question as to why something such as empathy that seems so essential to human existence is not in greater abundance? We must work on ourselves before we work on others. In terms of empathy, one human addiction that must be overcome is our quickness to judge and punish. As Daniel Defoe wrote, “I hear much of peoples' calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.” In addition, we must peel away the layers of callous that shield us from the concerns of our fellow human beings. As Salma Hayek observed, “Not to him who is offensive to us are we most unfair, but to him who doth not concern us at all.”

“Human altruism is thought to be based, in part, on empathy.

To be empathetic, you need to understand the thoughts

and desires of others.”

--Joan Silk

Even closer to home, we must overcome aggressive, destructive, behaviors and replace them with those that heal and build. Of this Dan Fallon states, “You don't have to accept the invitation to get angry. Instead, practice forgiveness, empathy and encouragement.” Add to this success formula the art of listening to the other person. As Stephen R. Covey points out: “When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.” This not-so-simple act of human respect helps to validate the other person and ensures success of both parties. Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford knew this to be true when he expressed, ”If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get to the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.”

“Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie,

but rather mourn the apathetic, throng the coward

and the meek who see the world's great anguish

and its wrong, and dare not speak.”

--Ralph Chaplin

"Humani nihil a se alineum putat."

(He deems nothing human alien to him.)

— Terrence De Quincey