Empathy: The Seed-bed of Love

 

Ever saw the paradox of killing with one hand and saving with the other? We do it man! Systematically, institutionally and with our collective social ethos.

How precious is a new-born life! It’s more precious than anything else on earth. You cannot find anything to weigh its equal in the opposite pan. Nothing matters more than the survival of a new-born child. It becomes the primary cause. You become its sky and earth, sheltering this water bubble to keep its shiny film of time-dome reflecting in your eyes. There it merges with your dreams and your dreams rush out into the broad daylight to shake hands with your destiny. You cup your hands over it to save this feeble light from going off even by the slightest whiff of air.

Look at the way the little signs of life in a just born, fragile, weak and soft infant, are picked up and held to heart with so much love, care and affection! You hold the tiny seed, so small that it can be blown away by a little whiff of air from the mouth, and see it growing into a big banyan. It becomes larger and more important than you, nourished by the dewy showers of your heart, honey-sweet sips of your emotions and defended by the ramparts of your protectiveness.

A new-born clings to survival like it is held to life just by an invisible string of a cobweb, which may snap at the slightest carelessness. So we dreamily hold dear life like dreams spread on our eyelashes. It’s our own image we hold, our chance to survive in future, a continuation of our journey, a furtherance of our hopes, aspirations, passions and the culmination of all our struggles. It’s a reward for all our perspiring work. It’s the medicine for all the ailments that plague us. A child, a new life, is a symbol of our belief in the freshness and meaningfulness of the journey, the great art of doing, of making, the story of continuing the march. That’s how we nurture a new life.

If not for this instinct, no child will ever survive. After all, it’s such a tiny lamp and the storms are so strong. Why is it that once that very life grows up, we grow so apathetic to it that its decimation and destruction hardly counts as anything more than a routine news item? Why killing becomes more expected and natural than saving lives? Why are there more people ready to kill than those eager to save lives?

It’s the futile game of doing and undoing. Just making and then breaking. It’s the mad, crazy force that has kept us to the level of mere struggling pack of humans who are as miserable like they were thousands of years ago. It is the bondage that holds us back, stopping us from becoming superhuman, which was otherwise our destination given the beginning we had in the loveable most and caring hands. But we first do and then undo: the nasty cycle of creating and destroying.

A part of us is making, and the majority is involved in destroying. And we remain where we started from. We nurture new life like the dearest jewel to the self, and then we get busy in the mad frenzy to kill and destroy those very dear lives. It’s self annihilation. It’s like raising crops with all the care and then burn them. Sounds nonsensical, isn’t it?

We are born as a tiny ball of love. That is the essential seed of love. Even suicide bombers were once innocently laughing infants. Why then love gets buried deeper and deeper as we grow? Well, a lot has to do with our collective values, education system and family set-up. We basically raise kids to be more competitive and not loving and considerate beings. The latter are taken as signs of weakness. No wonder you have too many fighters. Just try to recall the last time you tried to make your child learn the importance of empathy! In winning, goals, ambition, competence and technology you may have given hundreds of lectures. So don’t cry over the evil spin-offs. You systematically bury the blossoms of love and then cry over the prickly cacti.  

Don’t you think our formal education can absorb a bit of the element of empathy? You can make rockets through science, and you hesitate to inculcate few fundamentals of understanding others’ concerns. Science in the hands of inconsiderate, insensitive people becomes dangerous. On the other hand, in the hands of loving people, it becomes the common instrument of enjoyment, fun, laughter and life.  

On a positive note, all of us have our stock of empathy. Just that we try to keep it buried under apathy by pretending ignorance. We simply need a bit of courage to put it into practice. It's purely an unused resource with us. It is not a humungous task. All you need is to resonate with others’ feelings. That's it. It doesn't belittle you. It enlarges your persona. By opening, you grow only. It’s a simple natural law, a mundane pre-requisite to self-rewarding greatness. Don't expect laurels and citations from the government and other institutions out there. Your best judge, your soul, will give you one. And it won't disappoint you. Believe me.

In the rat race of high IQ, we have forgotten the beauty of soft talents like self-discipline and empathy. But these softest things make you the strongest of a person. It gives social and emotional intelligence. You simply cannot have loving, healthy relationships without it because empathy has a mysterious power.

There might not be too much of a correlation between empathy and IQ. Our brains after all have different parts for these. But then don't you think just developing the IQ is lopsided. Why has then nature given us the space for EQ in our brains? Nothing is redundant in nature, by the way.

Every man has a bit of woman in him, and every woman has a bit of man in her. Sexes are not simply biological brackets. It's basically about the broad nature of masculine and feminine qualities to complete the picture in nature. Masculinity (outflow, aggression, tendency to win, to take, spread, fast rush and overcome) and femininity (receptiveness, poise, stillness, acceptance, to give, to embrace, slow pace, geniality) are two broad qualities in nature propelling the cause of creation ahead.

So much as you cherish the headstrong machismo traits in you, the feminine power of qualities like empathy will only complete the picture of your persona. It gives you the healthy balance to walk the tightrope. So feel no shame in boosting your brain's right hemisphere for a bit of romance, artistry and empathy to broaden the picture. It only completes you.

Isn't it that broadening your sense of relatedness to include a bit of space around you, gives you a bigger identity? It does without any doubt. It becomes a pathway to freedom. Masculinity might be the sword in your hand, femininity on the other hand is the breast plate of hardest steel on your chest. Survival isn’t just about attacking. It also means having the capacity to bear the brunt of someone’s attack.