Empathy: The Cure for Humanity

Mark Twain wrote “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” I believe that if we put this in practice we could achieve world peace or come damn close.

Everyone’s thoughts and views are skewed by their environment so it stands to reason that if they never leave said environment they can’t possibly understand the people of the world on a more grand scale. Living in one place for your entire life and never experiencing different people and places who have vastly different cultures and outlooks from your spot on the map is not only doing yourself a disservice but has a ripple effect reaching far beyond you. It’s comparable to watching a movie from inside a box through a tiny pin hole. (This isn’t’ a political rant, I swear so don’t drop me based on this next analogy) A prime example is a state that consistently votes Republican or Democrat. They are referred to as “deep red” or “deep blue” because it can be relied upon that the people living in them see things one way, raise their kids to see them that same way and refuse to ever venture out or identify with why someone just a few hundred miles in any direction can believe the exact and polar opposite. Unless you’ve been completely immersed in a society where you are the minority, be it race, political affiliation, religion, whatever you can’t truly see from their point of view. I’m not trying to discredit the person who hungers to be informed and takes time to watch multiple news outlets from all sides of party lines, or who studies the history of a people to learn how oppression has affected them and continues to affect them. That person is a scholar in their own right and is taking steps toward a better world. However there is no replacement for actual experiences. You can dream of NYC all day long, you can watch movies, read the history, even go to Google Maps and virtually walk the streets, you could be an NYC aficionado but none of that will even touch the experience of walking those streets with your own two feet. You won’t have the familiarity of your nostrils being overcome with a combination of people living in close quarters, mingled with street vendors and city air all serving to muddle your brain until you can’t tell whether it smells good or not. You can’t duplicate the incomparable visual of buildings soaring overhead and packed in so tight that it’s reminiscent of being a mouse in a maze. The multicolored array of people ranging from business suits to bag ladies and drag queens to punk rockers. It seems no one even recognizes the fact that they are part of this hodgepodge and they continue on as if it’s all normal because to them, it is! You look over your shoulder and see roasted ducks, still intact, hanging featherless in a window and the next shop is full of furniture that can’t possibly be common place but again no one takes note. You are hyperaware of everybody that brushes yours as they hustle past absorbed in their own life. Like ants in a jar. A magnificent, limitless jar. All of the Google Mapping and distance learning in the world can’t compare to that. That total onslaught of your senses; while overwhelming and intense is nothing but surface matter. In order to truly understand that place or any other you have to spend time in the trenches getting to know the people with an open mind. You don’t have to agree with them but listen intently to their world interpretations and ask questions with the intent of understanding, not to just throw roadblocks. Truly hear them. Do this over and over again, in city after city, with different people around the nation or God willing the globe. Try to get into their world and live life from their amphitheater, attempt to comprehend why they are the way they are and why they view things the way they do. If you do this I will absolutely guarantee that you will be changed to your very core. You will begin to question why you feel a certain way on particular issues and start to wonder if it’s just because it’s what you were taught or if you truly believe it. This experience can both change your outlook and solidify your beliefs. After you’ve been exposed to another’s world it is hard to close off your mind again. Your political views, unquestioning religious opinions and essentially who you are will begin to morph and become more fluid. If everyone did this, if every single person attempted to live life as a person who is polar opposite of them in everything from religion, politics, race or gender; for even a short time, imagine the impact it would have on the global scale. If you as a white man could truly fathom what it’s like to be a black man, or you as a small town, rural, southern kid could know what it’s like to be from a densely populated, urban mecca or you as a devout Christian could make a genuine effort to grasp the beliefs of a Muslim or any multitude of other situations that could be reversed, imagine the change that would result. Close your eyes and envision it. It’s such a simple fix, it’s actually doable yet we still write it off. Literally all we need to change the world is empathy which in my opinion is encompassed by love. The definition of empathy as defined by Mariam-Webster is “the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else's feelings.” That’s it. Uncomplicated and absolutely brilliant in its simplicity.

Mother Teresa was quoted in saying “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” All it takes for tangible, permanent world change is for millions of us to cast a pebble into the water.

I have lived the majority of my life stagnant and oblivious to the world around me but have recently had my eyes peeled open, despite my resistance and I cannot even entertain the notion of shutting them again. My mindset has forever been altered and I am intent on making ripples in this world. I am intent on leaving it a better place than I found it in, if not just for the love of humanity in general then for the love of my children. The deep, abiding love of a passionate mother, a mother who has seen what she cannot un-see and will fight until her dying day so her babies don’t have to. Part of that fight entails persuading others to open their eyes. If I can convince you to love my children, the forgotten children of Africa, the children of war torn Syria, the children who grow up to love a person of the same sex, or God forbid the children of the Muslim faith. Love them even half the amount that you love your own children solely based on the fact that they are all people not so different from you. Each has a story, a history and a set of contextual circumstances; with thoughts and beliefs that they hold to as strongly as you hold to yours. If we can do the small thing of looking at every person as an equal, together we will change the world. Don’t underestimate the ripple effect and the change that you as an individual can enact.