empathy

i think true empathy is a talent, & a rather uncommon one. (i learned this from becoming close friends with a highly empathic person: her life was filled with people telling her their troubles, from friends to total strangers; in another society she might have become a counselor, or a witch doctor.)

what passes for empathy is often simply a social demand that we react in a certain way. it is fundamentally no different from the demands that people look & dress within a certain range.

what i have always had is an instinct for justice; & anger when i see justice denied. (i think this is related to truthfulness, which i plan to cover as a separate topic on my aspie blog.)

there is something related which i have experienced, invariably when i spend a lot of time around a person. i start to involuntarily absorb an impression of their personality. it is not a fast process, & i don't even know how accurate an impression it is that i receive, but it feels like i am becoming that person to a small degree. i don't know how they are going to react in any situation, but i somehow imagine i understand a little bit what it is to be them.

i also experience this sometimes when i have read a good biography, or watched a movie which i identify with strongly. (in this case i am more willing to call it an illusion, since both of those artifacts contain only personality-simulations, created for a single purpose.)

i think this is a deep subject, & needs to be considered in several dimensions, rather than assuming that by giving it a name & then treating the name like a feature with binary dimensions, it has been comprehended.

i will end by admitting in casual encounters, i only intellectually understand other people have feelings; & i can be shockingly callous, if i'm not careful. (in 52 years, i have learned a thing or two, i guess.)