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aliljaded 53F
23944 posts
4/24/2017 3:57 am
Empathy...

Empathy...

Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us—a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain—it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It’s made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it’s asked for, but this doesn’t make our caring hollow. The act of choosing simply means we’ve committed ourselves to a set of behaviors greater than the sum of our individual inclinations: I will listen to his sadness, even when I’m deep in my own. To say “going through the motions”—this isn’t reduction so much as acknowledgment of the effort—the labor, the motions, the dance—of getting inside another person’s state of heart or mind. This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always arise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.

— Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams


"Men need to hunt. She obviously understands this. She’s offering herself as prey. Not easy prey. But willing.”


drmgirl622 68F  
25880 posts
4/24/2017 3:43 pm

Very insightful and the pic is wonderful......


Dreamcatcher__ 87M
7019 posts
4/24/2017 6:58 am

His is a great find. Congratulations!

I too like the last sentence, but the entire argument encapsulates concepts I have tried to deal with and reconcile in a lifetime that has been dedicated to public policy: what standards do we use to allocate scarce and valuable resources? I believe empathy is key to resolving these issues. Money taken away from citizens in taxes has the potential to deprive them of resources they may desperately need. Every public dollar allocated to one cause is taken away from another. The process of judging which cause to allocate scarce resources to is subject to special pleading and manipulation by people and organizations with often self-serving interests. Without empathy, the voiceless are left without a say.


rosaenaluin 65F
10827 posts
4/24/2017 5:43 am

Hmm, beautiful put in words, were everybody is born with, Original.

Empathie and be good as a human being...when you look at real small childeren, you still can witness that behaviour...
so tender, so beautifully human.....


aliljaded 53F
8847 posts
4/24/2017 3:59 am

This post really touched my heart ...

"Men need to hunt. She obviously understands this. She’s offering herself as prey. Not easy prey. But willing.”



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