Can a person be too empathetic?

Empathy is my set-point--I have to remind myself that I am just one person, not an amalgam of everyone who ever lived.

This is why I write and read poetry, short stories, and novels in addition to non-fiction (mostly history, politics, and economics). I crave being swept up into another person's emotional and intellectual life.

I have realized that I am not "usual" in this regard--growing up, I imagined that everyone was more or less like me and expected them to act that way. Not true!




Photo image: Me in the kitchen, thinking it over

Empathy or sympathy?

Don't confuse the two. Sympathy involves feeling pity for someone else's pain. It's a virtuous exercise to feel sympathy, but it usually comes from a place of superiority, not equality.

Empathy is not just feeling bad for someone else--it's becoming someone else for a brief time.

Is empathy common?

It's been an education in itself for me to see how creativity, compassion, and love for community are not universal traits and attitudes.

Empathy is a gift, I think, but it's one that people can seek. It starts with pulling yourself out of yourself--a painful process for many, though the normal state of mind for me.

Try writing a poem or little story from the point of view of someone you know well. Imagine a situation--how would that person react?

Too much empathy, I must warn you, is lethal to the kind of mental certainty that most people prefer. Empathy will leave you longing for the solid rock of fixed beliefs and narrow prejudices. But it will enlarge your world in ways that are enriching and satisfying.




Photo image: Lewis Hine, 1920. Power house mechanic working on steam pump.

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