what empathy actually is. (+022+)
Empathy is a skill. We can use it to resolve conflict and gain deep insight it. (+) for the Paid Subscribers: "Near Disastrous Stories" of Failed Empathy.
1.) Jogging with B and empathizing.
Me and B running on a Saturday morning through Burg. We’re in flow. Which means the conversations can flow. Mile 7 or 8 of 10.
A longer run because he’s preparing for a race in April. End of march? Roads are empty. Backwoods wheelers-burg roads. The best time for talking with B is when we run. Something about the blood-flow and cardio that knocks loose interesting conversations.
This is almost my preferred medium of conversation at this point.
jog-talking.
We discuss EMPATHY.
The subject comes up because of the recovery discussion in Portsmouth.
2.) We try to understand how the conversation is breaking down on people and we identify two components of the conversation:
1.) MICRO: The individuals that are recovering. Personal experience. Knowing someone that has recovered.
Being an advocate of recovery because you know this one person who was a bad person (or a sick person), and now is a good person, because of the recovery programs in Portsmouth. The benefit is very clear and helpful at the micro level if you know a recovered person.
***see
from Josh Lawson or Drugs and Jesus
2.) MACRO: perspectives on the larger issue of recovery in the area. Recovery infrastructure.
Concern for bringing an enormous amount of people into the Scioto County area that don’t recover. How many people actually recover? 1 in 10? Concerns for the numbers and what it means for the community practically.
We both agreed, the MICRO and MACRO (the subjective and objective) are both equally valid components of the conversation. But people are often on one side or the other without knowing.
We mistake the part for the whole.
It’s easy to adopt the micro view and not account for the macro and vise versa, and then when you have a conversation about something as sensitive as recovering from drug addiction with someone who leans micro or macro, its easy to feel like the more sane one in the conversation.
its easy to feel like you opponent is blind or heartless.
When in reality you both are just embodying a part of the conversation.
B and I were verbalizing this on mile 7 or 8 and it felt to me like we were cracking part of the code.
We could take into account the two perspectives with our two leanings and continue civil discourse, productively, so that we could have a text exchange latter in the day for further clarification.
And it was all pleasant.
3.) I told him i think this is what Empathy is: what we’re doing right now.
Empathy = a problem solving perspective.
Empathy is a learned skill.
Like detachment.
You have to practice it.
But that’s good to know, because you can get better at it, and other people can get better at it, and less people get hurt simply because they misunderstand each other.
When people don’t empathize properly, they’re literally framing the problem wrong.
BAD EMPATHY is like trying to solve the NINE DOT PROBLEM.
you know this?
DIRECTIONS: Use 4 straight lines, you can overlap if you like, but they have to be connected, and you have to touch every dot.
I AM HORRIBLE AT THESE LOL.
HINT: You have to think outside the box to solve it.
google it when you’re ready lol.
can you solve it?
BUT DESPAIR NOT you’re smarter than me!
Here’s the point.
EMPATHY is like the 9 Dot Problem, according to vervaeke. It’s all about PROBLEM FRAMING.
Once you understand how to solve a painful problem. You never forget.
It’s even kind of fun to look back and think about how blind you were.
It’s fun to learn.
You learn how to solve the problem, you help others avoid the amount of pain you were in when you had to solve the problem (if they listen lol) and you get a little wiser.
And now,
4. more Near Disastrous Stories on Empathy for the paid $ub$criber$:
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1.) The GOAL of Empathy is to frame the problem correctly you so that you have a chance of solving it.
Or not making it worse.
The roots of the word “EMPATHY” hold keys to its power.
Empathy in Greek: Empatheia.
Em = ‘in’
Pathose = ‘feeling’
To get in a feeling. To embody it. Understand it.
It’s the same as to “Take a walk in someone else’s shoes.”
But why? For what?
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