Empathy is the key...

I'm often intrigued by the dark side that every creature possesses and it's no surprise that humans come out on top (as usual) in this area too. Animals may feel anger, territorial aggression, love but us humans have a much larger dark side with jealousy, guilt, hatred, spite etc. either because of our incomprehensible conscience or our ego. And over the course of analysing these grey clouds of our oh-so sunny personalities, I've found out that the one thing that we humans actively avoid is empathy.

We're not devoid of empathy but subconsciously humans are very picky about showing empathy to fellow humans. I've remarked in my former post how we humans have a shielding mechanism to the society's pain, which allows us to function in day to day life. I feel it's a generally evolutionary trait that we've acquired because of the increase of pain all around us. To explain in a nutshell what I'm talking about, imagine just for a moment, how you would feel if every bad feeling you've ever known, every misery, every sad news, every bit of jealousy, hate, spite and guilt came at you together. It would annihilate you. How many times do we hear about the ISIS killing one more person? I'll tell you what your reaction will be. It will be :

A) No reaction. You change the channel, open the sports page of the newspaper or if you're technologically inclined, you'll swipe it away. (Swiping it away is most effective, because it genuinely feels like you're dismissing it but more on that in another post)

B) You'll feel bad, but you'll still repeat step A or a customization of step A.

C) You'll feel bad, you'll question why you're feeling bad and when your brain tells you that human life is sacred, the narcissistic defensive side of the brain which wants your life to function will remark that 'People die every day. If you don't mourn one, why mourn the other. Why is that person special?' (On a side note, if you're type C, consult a psychologist)

So, in all the three scenarios you have successfully removed the scenario from your consciousness. Because it's uncomfortable, because it won't let you sleep, it won't let you function, it will cripple your consciousness. And I'll tell you what. You'll not even think about how you didn't think about that ISIS victim. Why? Coz your mind cannot comprehend your apathy. Your mind cannot comprehend what a monster you are, to not be moved by the burning or beheading of a living, walking person with a family and a kid.

So this coping mechanism of ours, which we seemed to have developed as communities got smaller, restricts our empathy to known people and it reserves our apathy for people we do not know. In the olden times, and I'm talking about really olden, people lived together in caves. Anyone suffering in the cave, would get empathy from everyone. But as houses got smaller, families were created, empathy became restricted.

Getting to the crux of the matter : to negate every negative aspect of a human, try and be more empathetic. The cure to hatred and spite, guilt and envy, is empathy. It's the one antibiotic that works against them all. When you put on the spectacles of empathy on your eyes (that's cheesy, but couldn't help it), your bitterest enemy seems docile. Your whole outlook changes.

Think about the person you most dislike (everyone has one at least). Why do you dislike him/her? Does he/she have any faults? Or does he/she have it all? Start thinking things from his side. No seriously, do it. Think how they might be struggling with their lives (we all struggle).

I once didn't like a person because he had it everything. And I had nothing. I'm not proud of it, but I'm bold enough to admit it. I had to work for everything, but he got it all and he was ungrateful. Then I tried to see life from his perspective. About the identity crisis that he must be facing. How it must be killing the person because they are nothing but a shadow without a body. And this changed me. The moment I started being less self-centered and more outgoing and putting myself in people's places, I could no longer feel bad towards them. In fact, I started feeling bad for them. And that's where my apathy kicked in.

Because if you really analyse, this is a selfish exercise isn't it? This is serving no one but yourself. But I encountered this great theory on whether what you do is right or wrong. And that theory suggested "Think about what you're doing. Now think if every person in the world did this, would the world be a better place?" If the answer to this is yes, you're doing fine. So think about it, if everybody tried to be empathetic towards another person, just to decrease the negative side of theirs, just to clear out the grey clouds from their skies, would the world be a better place?

P.S - That theory was suggested by Gregory David Roberts in Shantaram. Must read.

To Be Or Not To Be.. Selfish?

All humans are designed to be selfish and look after their own needs above everyone else's. The degree of selfishness varies from person to person; from downright backstabbing crazy, to subtle sabotaging and manipulation to get their own way, everyone's out there to get things done for themselves.  Hard as it is to admit, we are a selfish race. We were selfish when we were evolving, which is why we evolved in the first place. Nature's rules are clear. The fittest survives. To invoke the well known quote : "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.", human race advanced and survived for all these years because we were selfish. We learned how to stay away from predators or how to kill them. More than that, humans learned to kill humans when they were a danger to their own selves. Selfishness, which might be considered a subset of our survival spirit is the reason why we are where we are; which includes being the most advanced species on the planet and also the species which is causing the most harm to the planet.

If you've read Ayn Rand's books, they're all about the concept of objectivity. She touches upon a lot of subjects, one of which is how selflessness and not selfishness is driving the world into tatters. Although her points may be far too cynical, they have value. In our present society, we are taught to look upon any service given to us as a gift and we are taught to being grateful to that person for giving us the service (despite paying for it). A lot of it stems from the fact that most people perceive their job to be a necessary tool to survive and not to live. If everyone genuinely cared about what they were doing, completing the job would be a thankless deed. If you really love doing something, doing that thing becomes a necessity; an act that you must, and I cannot emphasize this 'must' enough, carry out to put your soul at rest. If everyone does what they really love, completing their task would be the most important thing in this world and society would fall into place. This is easier said than done because there is always a fine line between passionate and obsessed and many people slide into obsessed causing them to do things which might not be good for society. That's why Rand's philosophy turns out to be a little too out there.

And there's the other side of the spectrum. Selflessness. One of my complaints with selflessness is how misused that term really is. Any deed classified as selfless, when deeply analysed will have an ulterior motive of the said self. Very few acts are truly selfless because it takes a lot of stomach to do something selfless. I think the most pure form of selflessness is when you know that doing that particular act will harm you but it will benefit that opposite person. That is what I feel is a selfless act. On a different note, isn't it funny how being selfless requires some kind of self assurance? 

So then to be or not to be? The key to all this is balance. Be too selfish, and you're just a rotten person spoiling the earth with your stupid presence. Be too selfless, and the world will trample all over you. Have selective people, be selfless for them. Always look out for yourself. Because if you don't love yourself, nobody else will.

P.S - Trying these types of argumentative pieces instead of creative pieces.