Sorry for your loss

[lewisnotmiller]

Really, well lets see, if I sympathize with their plight then I'm basically saying, there but for the grace of God their go I; but if I empathize with them then maybe I'll say whatever happens to the least of me happens to me.

Empathising with an entire planet's worth of problems is basically meaningless. You can't know enough about the myriad situations, nor can you have experienced enough of them to truly 'empathise'. If you did truly empathise with them, you'd call up into a little ball in the corner.

Our minds don't work that way. What you see as 'callousness' is also a protective behaviour.

Still, feel free to judge anyone who has the temerity to say 'sorry for your loss'. I'm sure it's completely impossible that they're as empathetic as you are.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Does the Asperger's comment merit an I'm sorry. (We all have handicaps, whether they are obvious or not.

I wouldn't say merit, but rather a unique perspective as those with Asperger's often do not process or experience or express emotions in quite the same way those without would. Empathy, for example, is something I'm impaired in, but I can still have an understanding of why someone may feel the way they do, I can still experience many of the same emotions, and by taking a detour I can arrive at being able to express sympathy to someone.

If you were to say, Sorry, you didn't take advantage of the relationship in the time you had, yea I could go for that but to call it a loss when you didn't get all that you were supposed or could have gotten out of it in the time you had, is just incorrect.. Life is "precious" and all that is in it is precious, nothing is ever loss.

Experiencing loss has nothing to do with how much you time you spent together with something. If that were true, we would expect parents and significant others to mourn the least, while "regular" friends and acquaintances mourn the most. But the exact opposite is what we find happening, suggesting that the stronger attachment we have to someone (build by things like living together, being lovers, and cooperating/sharing with each other), the more we are likely to view someone's death as a loss, and the more it will hurt.
Another way to look at it, if I lost an arm I would be absolutely devastated because I couldn't play my bass or guitar anymore. And it would be extremely depressing for me, even though I've played on or the other nearly every day since I started playing them. I didn't lose someone important in my life, but I still lost something of high importance and value in my life. And because we are social animals, a simply "sorry for your loss," as a means of affirming social connections, can go a long ways in both helping to maintain social connections and affirming the support of others. Even if we don't explicitly want the sympathy of others, knowing they are there to help us and support us nevertheless is something we need as a part of our social relationships.

To bad, your pack example is disregarding the "6 degrees of separation" Their are no "other packs" except in the minds of people like you.

It's a sociological/anthropological fact that we do indeed and in fact practice group identities, that there are those who are a part of "us," and then those who are a part of "them." This is found in every culture, with sufficient evidence to reasonably assume it has existed throughout the duration of our species history, such as how generation-based group identification and subsequent bashing of the younger generation is a very old and very ancient tradition humans have.
Ultimately, it is just human to feel strong emotional connections to those we have bonded with over the years (philia or storge or eros), but those we are not connected to, at most we may feel a generalized sense of agape, acknowledging them as humans and the basic dignities that entails, but yet we can't feel more than this simply because we just do not have the bonds to feel a deeper connection.

 

[Tmac]

Empathising with an entire planet's worth of problems is basically meaningless. You can't know enough about the myriad situations, nor can you have experienced enough of them to truly 'empathise'. If you did truly empathise with them, you'd call up into a little ball in the corner.

Our minds don't work that way. What you see as 'callousness' is also a protective behaviour.

Still, feel free to judge anyone who has the temerity to say 'sorry for your loss'. I'm sure it's completely impossible that they're as empathetic as you are.

No problem.

I remember when I use to think, I can't handle this, its too big, I'm all alone but one day while I was focusing on how small I was, I asked myself, where did that thought come from and do I want add my energy to it. I could join the Red Cross but they were around way before I was moved to care and if you notice, they are not getting ahead of the problem, so something more needs to be done.

 

[Tmac]

Congrats, you see the truth of death. But alas, the rest of mankind react with hostility to these truths, I'm afraid.

People are so desperate to cling to their blind faith in suffering that they will attempt to demonize anyone who suggests otherwise. They project their hatred and fear of death onto those who neither hate nor fear death. We're seen as collaborators I suppose.

Ultimately I can't fault or blame them too much. It's a fear that, while irrational and false, is so ingrained into human biology and culture that they react with hostility to having their belief that death is bad challenged.

A little harsh, but apropos.

 

[Tmac]

This thread needs more brevity. So I will critique this phrasing here.

You mean troop. A group of primates is neither a herd nor a pack. It is a troop.

Troop, herd, does it really matter, maybe, dignities sake, but I am sure that there is only "one" troop/herd. To say there is more than one is motivated by prejudice and bigotry.

 

[Jumi]

I can empathize with your response (I am guilty of this as well) but sometimes peer pressure, the fear of ostracism, is felt and we capitulate. Stay in the herd.

I'm not one to go with the herd in that sense. It's more of a benefit of having a dictionary that helps us communicate. Even if they sound like platitudes or partly wrong they are still something that communicates having the well-being of others in mind. (and my language is much different in this than English, we don't express much emotion and in general are introverted...)

Ever watch most young children at a funeral, they have no idea what's going on, except that the big people are acting funny/different, they still want to play and have fun only to be chastised for their insensitivity. With enough practice (and they'll get it), they'll learn how to behave when some one "close" to them dies.

Children still have pure instincts. If losing an arm or an eye is terrible to an adult, it's something we are born to deal with. It's mostly society that makes those things into worse than they are.

Funerals were one reason why I left the Church, well beside the fact that I didn't believe in any of their dogmas. I felt the priests there liked to make things more sad than they had to be. Even the people who were coping came out depressed from those traumatic occasions that were worse than what we were feeling before.

 

[sayak83]

No problem.

I remember when I use to think, I can't handle this, its too big, I'm all alone but one day while I was focusing on how small I was, I asked myself, where did that thought come from and do I want add my energy to it. I could join the Red Cross but they were around way before I was moved to care and if you notice, they are not getting ahead of the problem, so something more needs to be done.

You starting a movement or something?

 

[Tmac]

You starting a movement or something?

Its more like something at the moment. The way I see the problem, remembering when basically my immediate life was all I really cared about, is to find a way everyone would be willing to give of themselves such a minimal amount and make the cause attractive enough that just their curiosity would have an effect.

 

[sayak83]

Its more like something at the moment. The way I see the problem, remembering when basically my immediate life was all I really cared about, is to find a way everyone would be willing to give of themselves such a minimal amount and make the cause attractive enough that just their curiosity would have an effect.

Hmm. Mine isn't aroused yet.

 

[Tmac]

Hmm. Mine isn't aroused yet.

If you were honest with yourself you would know that not to be true, you've already invested your time, which in time, you will realize its true value. But as I said, no problem, I can only count on myself. Peace.