Empathize, You Jerks!

     I’ve always been one for empathy. I like the idea of people doing their best to understand and relate to other people, and I firmly believe that if people paid more attention to empathizing and less to the Kardashians, the world would be a far greater place. Not that the Kardashians have any connection to empathy.
     Or ever would, when they have makeup and jeans to sell.
     The rest of us, I still somehow believe, can do better. Sure, it’s pretty easy to forget that notion when spending any amount of time on the internet, a medium people so often use to express their meanest, least virtuous selves. There seems to be relatively very little love, understanding, or even respect for those with differing opinions or experiences. Now, I personally have never put much stock in the notion that people should love everyone, because that’s impossible, and the inevitable failed attempts could drive one mad. Understanding, on the other hand, only takes a little thought and an open mind, and from there, connecting and relating to others comes quickly into view.
     Not that seeing it and reaching it are the same, mind you.
     The stretch of road between the two is littered with obstacles for all of us. I tell you, friends and neighbors, when I think about how some people don’t seem upset about tearing children away from their parents or locking people in internment camps for the crime of being refugees, or when I am again reminded of how comfortably they wave away the crudeness and corruption and cruelty of Philosophically Otiose Though Unreasonably Sonorous (it never ends, people), it becomes very difficult to feel anything but frustration.
     A long road, and one that runs two ways, eh? What must these folks think of me, with my pro immigration, pro choice, pro health care for all thoughts and beliefs, and how it all threatens their way of life. How they must cringe at my insistence that guns do the opposite of make things safer and shouldn’t be worshipped as the embodiment of freedom. What an oddity and perversion it must seem that I claim no authority over my partner, and have little to no interest in telling other consenting adults how they should conduct their love lives.
     I mean, for whiskey’s sake, I couldn’t even keep my bias out of that paragraph. What a fool I must seem to them. How easy must it be easy for them to forget that I too love barbecued meats and the spectacle of fireworks, and that even though I don’t celebrate the religious aspects of Christmas, I still enjoy being with my family and getting free stuff.
     Anyway, my point is that despite everything that’s going on, all the disunity and enmity being spread around right now, I think there’s still some room for people to connect. Be it a shared appreciation for a cold beer at the end of a long day, or sleeping in once in a while, or the universal struggle of trying not to laugh too loudly when a child falls down. Whatever it takes, it’s important to try to remember that everyone is going through their own stuff.
     Final note: this plea for empathy does not in any way extend to bigots, racists, or sexists. Those societal cancers deserve no quarter, and must always be called out for the slack jawed, hate filled, over-boiled potato, inbred, sponge brained, jelly spined, mushy sacks of tasteless gravy that they are, and then dismissed to rot alone and sad and forgotten.
    To everyone else though, just be cool and use your brains and hearts, yeah?
-John