-ON EMPATHY

 Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.   - Homer

I have dined with friends and acquaintances in regal halls, downing vintage French wine with the lavish repast. I have enjoyed the transient benefits of wealth; and on those cyclical occasions when I fell from grace and found myself in need, have been the recipient of their generosity. These are all good and honorable people who, for the most part, find  ways to aid those less fortunate than themselves. Most of them do so out of pity, sympathy, or simply out of the goodness of their heart. But they cannot do so out of empathy for how can a person of means empathize with those wading through dismal quagmires if he has never had the occasion to slog along with them and feel the misery first hand?

I have dined with friends and acquaintances in hovels with floors of hardened soil where the only item on the menu was boiled white beans with a hambone added to the recipe to add a little flavor and where the accompanying drink was tap water. These are all good and honorable people who view the upper classes with a mixture of envy, bitterness and, in some cases, respect and admiration for what those in the upper stratum have attained. But the one emotion that they will never posses is empathy for how can a person who has never accrued any tangible assets empathize with the complicated problems associated with wealth.

In my life, a cyclical journey that if plotted on a graph would resemble a biorhythm readout, I have had the opportunity to share my years and experiences with those residing at both ends of the societal spectrum. And that has taught me the true meaning of empathy. It has allowed me to feel both the elation and the misery of Man;  has allowed me to understand the feelings of those walking down paths that I have previously traveled.

To all those who cannot understand the true meaning of the word, I feel sympathy - not empathy, for I have never experienced first-hand the experiences that led to this void in your life. All I can state to you people is that you have not yet learned one of Life’s most important lessons. And if, after I have bid my farewell to this planet, you should pass the place where they are conducting my elegy, do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.*


*Ernest Hemingway: For Whom The Bells Toll

Copyright January 2010 - phil cerasoli