Empathy

What is empathy but a weakness and a strength. It is a both powerless and powerful. It can stop a tank and is unable to change the violence of humanity. It is a virtue and a weapon. It is learned and intuitive. It can change you for the better and for the worse.

Empathy is a balancing act. An unempathetic animal is one that is lost. An unempathetic human animal is one that is ignorant. You cannot lose yourself in empathy nor dismiss it as unworthy. But where does empathy get its strength? Perhaps it is from the same spring as wisdom.

It is the wise man that looks mortality in the eye and realizes that nothing lasts. It is the wise man that guages respect for and of others carefully. It is the wise man that is secure and confident enough to care for others that deserve it and to know how to tell the difference.

Empathy is a worthy gift and a priceless attribute. And it must be given and received with care. it is strange that every animal other than the human one, the only one capable of the level of empathy that our intelligence gives us, deserves unlimited empathy and we must deserve it or it becomes a weakness.