on to say that, “the boat had been refloated, repaired and is telepathy or osmosis; we are all limited by our humanity and as
such, we are in the same “boat”. The pun was intended in
better than ever”.
keeping with the theme of this article.
Kathryn’s positive attitude and her dismissal of black-and-white
and all or nothing thinking rang true to the depths of my being. The thought that should emerge here is that we can never truly
Smiling broadly, I not only made future dinner cruise know another’s subjective experience of the world. Because of
reservations, I knew that I had what I needed to write this article. this limitation we are left with only two choices to make. We
can either treat people the way that we want to be treated, which
What had especially impressed and enlightened me was the
is what it means to foster empathy, or we can choose to treat
distinction that Kathryn made between being sunken and
them as a foreign, subordinate entity, who is not worthy of our
partially submerged as “being a subtle difference”. In effect a
divine presence.
“subtle difference” means that there is a difference that is so
slight that it is difficult to detect or describe. The point is that That last statement is not intended to be sarcastic, it is intended
there was a difference, however slight, and that a change in to reinforce the idea that we are all human and no human is
supreme with regard to the other. This does not excuse the fact
perception made all the difference in the end result.
that some people’s actions can be horribly inhumane. They are
A parallel that I would like to make is that we have all given into
living proof, to the extreme, that we are capable of embracing
believing that something has “sunk”, that it is beyond repair.
the dark side of our human nature. We can choose, less than
Kathryn clearly illustrated that something which appeared to be
subtly, to embrace selfishness as someone does who sees
sunken was only temporarily out of order and the belief that it
themselves as different from the other.
was irreparable had no merit. By avoiding black-and-white
thinking, it became evident that what once seemed “broken” is I take my role in my relationships seriously with the hope of
now fixed and better than ever.
enhancing the world that I live in. I do my best to lead by
Not only have I been a victim of black-and-white and all or example, though being human, I fail at that occasionally as we
nothing thinking, I had been a perpetrator too. Sue and I know all do. The subtle difference here is that I don’t see the world
this all too well as the fate of our relationship hung over that
precipice long ago. The time came, as I was wrought with
serious doubts about our future together, that I let go of my
own selfish ego and, as a result, my perception changed
altogether. I realized that it was possible to bolster a faltering
relationship by fostering an attitude of empathy which promoted
flexibility in my thought process. Empathy is the capacity to
recognize emotions that are being experienced by another, in
this case my life’s partner, Sue.
“Empathy is the capacity to
recognize emotions that are being
experienced by another, in this
case my life’s partner, Sue.”
I recently heard about some research which determined that
your chance of divorce drops 2% for each sibling that you have.
The reasons cited were that we learn flexibility, sharing, dealing
with disappointment and developing coping skills. So unless we
all have 50 siblings, our chance of avoiding a divorce is less than
optimal.
or my troubled relationships as sunken, only partially
submerged, and therefore salvageable. However, I’m only one
half of the equation. We can’t force someone else to do the
things that they don’t want to do; we’re all human.
In philosophy there is something called “cognitive closure”. It
is the point at which our brain is unable to understand or
comprehend an idea or concept. A concise definition is simply
that subjective experiences, by their very nature, cannot be
shared or compared side-by-side. Therefore, it is impossible to
know what subjective experiences another person is having.
Philosopher Noam Chomsky noted that the cognitive
capabilities of all organisms are limited by biology, that is, a
mouse will never speak like a human.
There is a saying, “Relationships are forged" and it sounds like
what it is. The fire and heat, shaping and cooling of a
relationship can result in a beautiful end product or a smashed
mess of twisted metal.
I want to sidetrack for a moment to discuss the “L” word. The
word love is overused and oftentimes abused in our society. I’ve
seen people cringe at the use of the “L” word. My definition of
the word love is accentuated by the use of a capital L. I’ve come
to see ] H