金継ぎ: Piecing Ourselves Back Together
金継ぎ (Kin-tsu-gi) is a classical Japanese art form circa 1400 AD which uses gold to repair broken pottery-- this process treats the breakage of an object as an important, valuable point in its history. I believe this is exactly what our society needs to do--remember the past, but heal our public sphere. It's time to change up our look.
When I look around, I see faces glued to glowing screens more often than to the world around them. I see anger on the news and pettiness on Twitter (I've only been on there one time, for an analysis assignment, and let me say, I'm never going back). When people have strong opinions here in America, it's game over. I'm right and you're---you guessed it--an idiot.
The Dali Lama stressed that we need to heal (as a worldly society), and this can't happen if we don't build community. And although technology is amazing and globalizing, we should take some time to put down our phones and just be one with what's around us. Meet our neighbors. Say hi to people we pass on the sidewalk. It's awkward sometimes, but many times, giving a stranger a compliment can change their entire day--believe me, I've been on both ends of that one.
This is the first, pretty feasible step, to not seeing your opponent as your enemy, and their motivations as genuine, not evil. This is the lost key to civil discourse in the era of being butthurt.
The marriage of the Eastern heart and the Western mind is what we need, claimed the Dali Lama. We need more warmheartedness to solve our ethical issues--let's try to place ourselves in each others' shoes whenever we argue, he had said.
But to be warmhearted, we need to first find happiness within ourselves. I know it sounds a bit cheesy and dumb, but we do need to learn how to make our own happiness. If I was a piece of pottery, this pandemic dropped me on the floor. I lost all of my friends, no one showed up to my club's meetings, and I became very isolated, forgetting how to see the beauty in everyday things.
This was when I took to the sidewalk. My Asian ancestors always emphasized the beauty and importance of nature--It's something we all see, something we can share with each other. I'd recommend everyone take a walk and look up, away from your phones, to the big, blue sky. It's a beautiful thing. Why? Because we all share one sky, one roof. Let's all look around talk to some new people, and build more compassion.
What else can we do to build more empathy? I've conducted some research, and the consensus says to listen actively (sound familiar?) and try new things. If you don't have money (heyo) or time, etc, read more books! They're free adventures, perspectives, and experiences. And the more you can experience, the more you're equipped to understand and empathize with others who may be unlike you.
I believe that, while this is a feasible aspiration for us--college students of currently miniscule worldly importance--society as a whole shows its brokenness by its devaluation of empathetic argument and empathetic traits in leadership. Look to our ad-hominem political debates (circa 2016, 2020, to name only a couple). I can only wonder if this is a behavior our leaders will grow out of in time.
Our current state of discourse may be a shattered mess, but with compassion for others, I believe we can come back to civility and use liquid-golden empathy to piece ourselves back together.
My questions to you are:
1. Do you find it easy to have empathy for others? For some people more than others? Do you find it more difficult to empathize while in an argument?
3. Do you think it's realistic for big figures and world leaders to have heightened empathy, or is that something their position doesn't allow? Is empathy more necessary for someone of their caliber, rather than the everyday person?
This was a very encouraging and insightful post! I think empathy is huge when it comes to mediating public discourse. Personally, as someone who hates conflict in general, I don't have too much trouble empathizing with others. Sympathy is easier to tap into because it relies on shared experiences to connect and understand others. Empathy cannot rely on shared experiences and instead requires a person to visualize the mindset or situation of another without necessarily having experienced those things for themselves.
ReplyDeleteAs far as world leaders go and such, I do believe that there should be room for some empathy. However, that being said, I understand how difficult the mantel of leadership can be. There are some compromises which simply cannot be reached, and alternatively, there are some compromises which should not be reached (as far as human rights go and such). In a perfect world, our world leaders would put the well being of the people first, but I don't think I need to say that this is not a perfect world by any means. Showing empathy is important to reach peace and understanding between nations and peoples, but it can also be perceived as a weakness by those who would take advantage of such goodwill. I think it can be a very tricky balancing act.
I really enjoyed reading this post! To begin, I would like to say that I am a very empathetic person, empathetic to the point of causing myself issues. I'm sure most English majors have a big imagination, so finding empathy for people isn't hard because I can imagine what they are going through, and then I can feel that pain or emotion. I guess empathy doesn't have to always be a bad thing. I could empathize with a person's happiness just as much as I can with their pain. As for big world leaders, I think empathy should be a requirement or them. How else can they make the necessary changes to better the world? Of course they will sometimes have to make tough decisions, but tough decisions are better than ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThis was an amazing post, Sam! To answer your first question, I definitely feel as though I'm an empathetic person...perhaps too empathetic at times. I don't think that I find myself being more empathetic towards certain people; however, I'm sure depending on the situation this would change. For instance, I would probably feel more empathetic for a child going through a horrible situation than an adult...but empathy would still be present for both. I do, unfortunately, think that I find it harder to empathize while in an argument. This isn't necessarily due to the fact that I think I always have to be right in an argument (because that's not how my brain works while in arguments), but I think it's due to the fact that I'm in the middle of the situation - in other words, because I'm in the same shoes as the person I'm arguing with (aka we're both in an argument about the same thing), I suppose I'd be less likely to empathize, as I'm also thinking about my own issues.
ReplyDeleteI love your post! To answer your first question, I think I am an empathetic person. I try to hold the mindset of "I have only known this person for a small amount of time and do not know their whole story" which usually works. Now when it comes to arguing and my being empathetic...not so much. My empathy tends to deplete when someone starts putting words in my mouth (example: "So what you are actually saying is...") or if they resort to attacking my character and other things that are not important to the argument, I tend to remove myself from the argument. It's not a matter of needing to be right. The whole "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" is never the end goal for an argument for me. It should be a matter of articulating your side properly without any sort of bullying. But, when that does not seem possible and my empathy is depleted, I just say "I'm done" and don't try to engage with that person anymore because it feels like there is no leveling with them.
ReplyDeleteI love your analogy to the broken teacup and the advice to get off your phone every once in awhile. I think this is a piece of advice that is often scoffed at, but it's amazing how full of hate you can become by doomscrolling through Twitter and absorbing the constant discourse going on there (speaking from experience; taking Twitter less seriously and using the mute/block features probably added about 5 years back onto my lifespan).
ReplyDeleteLooking at your second question, I feel like this is one of the major points of tension between conservatives and liberals; conservatives tend to favor a leader that will prioritize Americans and be tough on issues they think are important, while liberals tend to go for the candidate that promises things like unity and protection of underprivileged people. However, I think that everyone on the political spectrum wants a candidate that has some capability for empathy--I think where we disagree is how *much* empathy. For example, I would want a leader that has a high level of empathy for everywhere on the globe, but others would rather that empathy be reigned in to apply mostly to American citizens (which I can also understand).
I have loved your posts this semester Sam. The fixing porcelain with gold is a really good analogy. I don't think that empathy is something that is easy or hard to have. I think you either have it or you don't. I think when I am in the heat of an argument or discussion and I feel heated, I have trouble empathizing. I could use the people at the scramble light today who were trying to talk to college students about abortion. When I was first approached I was mad because they were not wearing masks and they were deliberately asking questions that would elicit a reaction. If you had warned me about what was going down and I had nothing else to do, I would have been more calm and had a conversation with them and see why they were there. People who only enter those kinds of spaces to make someone react or slip up. I think ideally we would want our leaders to be empathetic but we also want them to put our interests before others, thus not having empathy in their actions. I think everyone needs to have empathy for others tbh.
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