On Empathy

[holland]

To emphathize is to step into the shoes of someone or something other than yourself and perceive a situation from their perspective. You're "walking in their shoes" and "looking through their eyes."

Of course, as mere mortals, we are not capable of omniscience. We cannot literally step into someone else's brain. Our own perspective will always flavor how we interpret someone else's. To believe anything else is to engage in harmful magical thinking, and that thinking can negatively impact our relationships.

But by gaining or speculating on many life experiences and "broadening our horizons," by "opening our mind" and reducing or holding back our judgement, we become increasingly capable of empathizing with greater accuracy.

This empathy is necessary for us to understand how others will perceive our art, what actions our characters will take, and all the options available to us when designing creatively.

Empathy differs from sympathy, in that sympathy is based in logic, while empathy is based in perspective.

I can sympathize with the sadness of someone losing a child, just by recognizing that of course, it's sad to lose someone close to you. I might cry over it, because I see or understand that they're sad, and it's a natural instinct to mirror the emotions of those around you when you're of a social species.

But it's only by sitting long and deep with the scenario of conceiving, carrying, birthing, and raising a wanted and beloved child -- only to have it torn away from you and being forced to live on without it -- that I can unlock the ability to feel genuine empathy for someone experiencing such a thing.

You're not just "feeling what they're feeling;" you're experiencing things from their perspective.

Empathy is mutually exclusive from exerting external judgement. When we cling to our own ideals and try to apply them to the perspectives of unlike people, we end up chained to our own perspective and unable to fully empathize.

Consider the previous scenario, but you're someone who is deeply judgemental of parents who "let" their children die. How could they have taken their eyes off them? Why did they let them go to a party at some other home? How irresponsible could they be?

By holding onto those judgements as you attempt to enter that perspective, you end up floating on the outside as an external observer. At most, you're experiencing what the target would think of someone excerting those judgements on them. Not the perspective of the target themselves.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to empathize with people you dislike. This can sometimes lead into you widening your own perspective, so you're better equipped to empathize with them later, even if you still don't agree with that person's actions.

But in the meantime, you can't fully achieve the level of empathy necessary to enter their perspective while clinging to judgement. Only the perspective of an observer.

That's not to say that judgement has no place at all in empathy, however. A huge part of empathizing is recognizing the way that people judge themselves, often in ways you can't personally relate to. That affects their thinking, motives, actions, and their overall perspective tremendously. Realizing how these internal systems of judgement differ from your own and being able to stew in them is one the hardest aspects of empathy, imo.

So judgement is relevant. But the key is to only engage with judgement from the perspective of the individual. Not with your own external judgement of their character, nor trying to apply your own perspective to how they "should" perceive others.

Empathy is one of the big "je ne sais qois" in art. It's where the subtlety lies. So don't neglect it.

We primairly gain empathy through life experience (travel, friendship, personal growth...) and speculative thinking (dreams, daydreams, storytelling, reading...). Those that disturb or challenge our values and judgements the most tend to trigger the most growth in this area.

It's also important to try on perspectives at many different levels of scope/detail, like how a particular small touch in a particular moment feels to a particular individual, versus how it feels for a particular individual to look back on the series of events across their lifetime and realize something about themselves or their circumstances.

But certain developmental milemarkers need to be reached in the brain before it can even start being trained.

Small children are physically incapable of experiencing empathy because they are unable to connect their neurons in a way that simulates experiences other than their own, and some students lag behind in their ability to use those skills even after they should be physically capable of doing so.

Unusual cruelty and aggression towards others or excessive over-corrections of those perceived to be flawed (such as physically violent responses to bullies who only used verbal violence, or self-harm in response to criticism) are indicative of delayed or distorted development in this area. Empathy training is slower and more complicated in these situations.

(If you can read this, the developmental aspects shouldn't be a concern for your own studies, but it's something you need to consider when training younger students.)