04/01/2022
In trying to figure out who I am and what I am about, what makes me tick, how I react and interact with others...I don't feel like classic 'sympath' or 'empath' describes me. SO! I am on an adventure to find, conjure or even create language that speaks more to who I feel and think I am.
Sympath?
Empath?
As with I assume millions of others, I feel like I embody both, largely due to how sensitive I am to others's feelings:
Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person's shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings.
em·pa·thy
/ˈempəTHē/
noun
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
sym·pa·thy
/ˈsimpəTHē/
noun
1. Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
2. Understanding between people; common feeling.
Agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
Relating harmoniously to something else; in keeping.
3. The state or fact of responding in a way similar or corresponding to an action elsewhere.
I feel like something is missing; likely my own limited interpretation of the language itself. These nouns/adjectives being more mutually exclusive than I had originally understood, especially revisiting them after having thought I understood them after almost fifty years of awareness of their existence.
*And why ___path, with the root being pathology? I suppose 'path' is much more in the Latin root than just suffering and/or disease, more to the feeling end of things, which makes sense with respect to the conversation at hand.
Living document! As with all things. <3
