The Incessant Woes of Limited Empathy

Time and again, life poses questions. Sometimes, if you are lucky enough, the questions are simple. The answers are obvious. The choices are crystal clear. More often, the questions are not so easy. Life has a way of screening difficult questions one after the other. Just like one of those exams that increase the difficulty level with each correctly answered question, so goes with life. It presents a tough time and simultaneously provides the courage to deal with it. However, just when you have gathered the pieces and begin to feel that the tough phase is over, more daunting questions seem to surface. That’s the vicious circle called “Life”.

Interestingly, the questions posed to us seem to be more difficult, pressing, stressful and draining than the ones posed to others. We peak into each other’s lives to ascertain the difficulty level of their questions, and almost always jump to the conclusion that our questions are more strenuous than theirs. The burdensome choices. The awkward answers. The adverse circumstances. All seem to be more hostile in our own life. The other lives also seem to be going through tough times, but everything seems to be under control. At least from the outside. In contrast, our life seems to have been struck by a hurricane that refuses to leave. That’s what happens most of the time. We fail to relate to other’s troubled lives because we have so much to deal with in our own life.

Yet, there are times when the trouble in someone else’s voice is enough to initiate a sea of emotions within us. Have you ever felt a lump forming in your throat just imagining a loved one (even though miles away, geographically) in distress? Has the thought of someone dear being in grief made you so sick that your own troubles ceased to bother you anymore? Have you found yourself drowning in depression because of an emotional loss that did not happen to you, but to someone you cannot imagine losing?

Yes, these are the moments when you reach the levels of empathy that can possibly be reached by your soul. In these flashes, we do not need to push ourselves to feel the way another human is feeling. It just happens. Even to such extents at times, that you cannot stop feeling all the bad emotions; that have nothing to do with you at all; just because another human is going through all those emotions. So how come empathy seems to come so effortlessly to us in some instants, and just seems to touch-and-go in other?!

Possibly, most of us are capable of limited empathy only. Probably, we are only moved by the troubles and struggles of a few. We do get disturbed by the sight of a disabled man who was begging on the street, or a two year old who was raped, or an entire country that was dismantled by an earthquake. But the disturbance seems to have a very short life. It leaves. Soon. Very soon. Conversely, when we find our best friend going through an emotional loss, or a sibling who fails to achieve the dream of their life by an inch, or a spouse who has a strained relationship with their parent, we just can’t help but feel for them. We don’t just stand with them. We become who they are. We go through what they are going through. We become as exhausted as they are. And with time, we even covet the healing that we intend to provide them. That is empathy too. But that’s the limited empathy that we possess. That’s the reason we are not always able to relate to each other’s difficulties. That’s why we always find the questions in their lives easier. Maybe that’s why the grass always looks greener on the other side.

So would it take make our lives easier if we could enhance the compass of our empathy? Would it make us better human beings? Would it even be possible to do so? Is it something that we are simply born with? Or is it something that we inculcate as our hearts entangle with other hearts? Did Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul or Florence Nightingale deliberately widen their empathy circles to include everyone around? Don’t know. Can’t say. Probably these too are some of those questions. The ones with no clear answers..

Noises.

Noises.

I whisper, “Sshh”. The noises continue.

Aarrggh! “Sshhh!” They don’t stop.

“Stop!”, I shout. They don’t stop. They won’t stop. Flash.

  I wake up irritated. My ears can catch no noise anymore. No more voices. No more noises. Just pitch black darkness in the room. Pin drop silence. My ears work harder to catch some essence of life. And then there is some. A  distant barking of some dog in pain. Or so it seems to me. There is somebody supposedly talking softly into the phone. Or maybe to themselves? Who knows? My eyes smartly adapt to the darkness. I see around. I grab the water bottle. Water is relieving, I believe, when it goes down your system through your throat; more so when the system throws it out through the eyes. 

Hmm.. So? Time to go back to sleep, I guess. I lie down. The clock’s ticking. On and on. Looks like I can go back to sleep again perhaps. 

And then.. the noises return. “SHUT UP!”, I shout in my head. Only in vain. They will never leave me. They will never abandon me. The noises…

What the Selfie Means to Me

It all started with our daily no-sense-conversation during the much awaited break-time at work. My friend began to narrate last day’s incident. Apparently, her brother was the proud owner of an expensive phone, which he happened to mistakenly drop on the floor. The poor thing’s once-pretty screen shattered into pieces. According to my friend’s narration, her brother’s first reaction was “I hope the front camera is still working. Warna main selfies kaise lunga (How else will I be able to click selfies)!“. She, obviously, was more concerned with the overall health-and-well-being of the phone (mainly by virtue of its price tag – as normal people should be – at least as per my understanding).

No matter how weird the kid’s first reaction was, it is inevitably indicative of the latest trending thing today –the selfie fever! Admit it or not, at one time or another, we all have been guilty of contributing to this trend. Whether it be one of those days, when all you want is a perfect picture of yourself, and you can’t trust another living creature with such a vital responsibility, or that moment when everyone on the floor necessarily needs to be a part of the picture (leaving no one to click it), we all have been on both sides of the lens, at the same time. However, here I am trying to investigate the deeper meanings that this trend signifies, about us, as a generation, and more importantly, as a society.

There is more to the picture, than what meets the eye. Quite literally here. Behind that smiling picture of yours, more correctly called: “selfie”, is a loner. It is a person who likes to be clicked, but probably has no one to click that picture for them. It is a person, who chooses not to share the desire to be clicked, even with the closest people, but does choose to share the click itself, on a social networking website, with people they barely know.

Funny thing is, selfie is not always about you. Catching up fast, is the group selfie trend, wherein a group of people, click their own group picture, managing to accommodate all in one picture. They say it’s a great way to make the perfect memory. But are we so busy making memories, that we have completely lost track of the art of living-in-the-moment? Are we so worried about what we are losing, that we tend to completely ignore what we most definitely have? Is the present not good-enough, that we constantly need evidence to remind ourselves that the past was good? Maybe, the questions are too far-fetched. Or maybe, they are not.

As far as I can humanly remember, the happiest times of my life, are from my childhood. The most precious moments, the most heart-felt laughs, the most authentic smiles, the most delicious foods, the most memorable trips – everything that defines “awesome” dates back to my childhood. I happen to remember every single detail, no matter how old or irrelevant it might be in the present context. Strange part is: We never had a camera. The stranger part is, we never felt the need of having one.

That makes me think; probably the best moments cannot be clicked. Or more correctly put, the best moments do not have to be clicked. When the picture becomes more important than the object of the picture, it’s time to put that camera away, and remind yourself, to live in the moment, and not in the picture.

Keep smiling. Not just for the picture! :)