Empathways to Enlightenment and Endarkenment

Mary Oliver wrote that "empathy is a kind of seeing, and it involves imagination as well as vision."

The word "empathy" has origins in Greek "Empatheia" and the root "pathos," which means "feeling."  It was first introduced to the English language in the early 20th century as a translation of the German word "Einfühlung," which means "feeling into." The term was initially used in the context of aesthetics and art appreciation.

Over time, the concept of empathy has evolved to encompass a broader range of psychosocial processes associated with 1) affective empathy (experiencing or sharing the emotions of another) and/or 2) cognitive empathy (understanding the perspective of another).  Empathy is a crucial component of emotional intelligence and the development of meaningful relationships.

The opposite of empathy is apathy or the lack of feeling.  So as a virtue, empathy can be the foundation for generating compassion and a motivating energy for prosocial behavior.  However, it could also be argued that the value of empathy is unstable on its own and may need to be balanced with rationality and discernment in order to navigate between the extremes of excessive empathy and calloused indifference.  
Otherwise, the drawbacks involve our susceptibility to emotional exploitation as targets of manipulative marketing or weaponized empathy.  There is also the risk of empathy distorting facts as evidenced by proximity bias (preference for those close in distance or likeness) and other modes of selective empathy, short-term focus, and the prioritization of identifiable individuals (stories) over large groups or abstract statistics.  These limitations have inspired the effective altruisim movement which aims to update our evolutionary empathy instincts to match the often complex modern social problems.

Additionally, unbound empathy can lead to distress and burnout.  Preoccupation with the feelings of others can result in decision paralysis or the hindering of our ability to respond timely and skillfully.  When a river floods its own banks, it turns turbulent and loses the balance that sustained its nourishing flow; or like the tides of the sea, we naturally require a cycle of rising and retreating.

Ultimately, empathy's true spiritual power reorients to our recurring theme of kindness and discovering our underlying circulation with totality. Feeling into oneness.  It is an elegant common cornerstone among most major religions. At the heart of their moral philosophy, the empathic aphorisms enshrine the same message in colorful ways.  

Beyond "The Golden Rule," other verses include "the whole world is a family" in the Rigveda, "all beings are Buddha nature" in the Lotus Sutra, and "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," attributed to Philo of Alexandria.

This episode explores the ends of empathy in all its bittersweetness.

(Music “To New Beginnings” by Bing Satellites)