Empathy: why do we fail this Subject?

 

EMPATHY: WHY DO WE FAIL THIS SUBJECT?

 

How well do we know and understand humanity? Are we really the compassionate and the empathy type of human beings that we’d like to preach we are? Do we really think about what others feel and what they go through?

Honestly speaking I don’t think so, the level of compassion we feel about characters in dramas, movies and novels; we hardly feel an ounce of that compassion for even our family or relative let alone a stranger. Why are we so hard hearted? Is it made of stone instead of the muscle meant for pumping blood or the emotions one could feel for another living soul?

When our favorite character is stuck in some kind of emotional or mental turmoil and they cry and lament or swallow everything down no matter how bad it stings; we sympathize with that character, feel bad for them, discuss them, fight over those imaginary trials and even go as far as abusing others who speak ill of them or sometimes even cry over it. Now where is that same level of enthusiasm when someone family or someone we know suffers? What do we do then? Taunt them, Mock them, make fun of them, and sometimes even go as far as adding to their share of troubles instead of sharing those troubles with them, shedding tears with them, making sure our hand is the hand they’ll find on their shoulder when they need support and encouragement.    We should seriously consider this and work on improving ourselves, the problem doesn’t lay in feeling all those emotions or even having feelings for a fictional world because this in a way is stress relieving or diverting our thoughts/issues giving us a break, it actually lies in directing the level of feelings meant for living breathing personnel towards made up people.

All that work, all those efforts actors put into acting or in other words giving us a taste of their artistic or rather expressive nature, all that work shouldn’t be put down by this whole argument; in fact I wholeheartedly appreciate all their efforts; so it’s definitely not about that but rather one’s appreciation shouldn’t turn into another’s humiliation and belittling. We should understand that the ones we are siding with are just fictional characters based on one or more person’s imagination where as the ones insulted and hurt by us are real people made of flesh and blood just like us and like us they have feelings too. So one should be more considerate and feel sentimental about another’s pain exactly the way they do about a fictional character.