Don't numb it, master it and let it lead under control. Empathy is an
incredible virtue, but it must be disciplined.
I don't know enough neuroscience to know what the "right dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex" is exactly but I know that you can over-ride/master
it with reason and discipline.
So I think there's something more to people allowing their better
nature to slip under stress than simple brain chemicals.
A colonel told me, that in the moment of most stress that's when the
men need you most of all, and need you to retain dignity,
self-sacrifice, and thinking about _them_ more than ever. When
everyone is shitting themselves we revert to "I'm alright Jack"
self-preservation mode. That's precisely the time when you need to dig
deep and let _reason_ take the lead. Compassion/altruism etc is a
personality structure, not a fleeting feeling, so it's encoded into
your rational decision making.
So a ton of training is about getting you to "snap out of yourself".
The body moves in fast time, but if the mind can still stay in slow,
measured mode, that's how the best comes out in some poeple under
adversity. Hardballs who have no love for humanity will jump on to the
tracks to save a kid from a subway train, because deep down they are
actually masters of the empathy they've carefully hidden.
I guess that tension between what you know you should do and what you
find yourself instinctively inclined to do - is conscience.
I really don't sympathize with your viewpoint. Lots of research shows that it's hard to go against your natural state. You only have so much willpower - for most people it's a finite resource.
In that context, your comment reads "Why don't you just decide to be better?". Do you think that the original commenter wanted to be this way? That it was a deliberate choice? Do you think it's that easy to change right now? I won't go on, but your comment came off as condescending - whatever your intentions are.
> Lots of research shows that it's hard to go against your natural state.
How do you define 'natural state'? For example, my natural state is to be attracted to food when I'm hungry, to certain humans who I find sexually appealing, etc., but I don't grab those things when they pass by; it's not hard. My natural state is to be angry or upset when my client says certain things, but I don't punch them or cry. My natural state is to be an illiterate, innumerate nomadic hunter-gatherer, like 200,000+ years of ancestors, yet here I am on my fat ass in front of a computer.
People process their emotions in many ways, healthy and unhealthy. It's our choice what we each do with them. Emotions are exceptionally valuable to judgement, intuition, and to your experience of the world. They are your experience of the world, for the most part.
> your comment came off as condescending
I'm not the commenter, but for another POV, that wasn't my impression.
Look, I understand what you're saying. But I don't mean "learning math", I was referring to a fundamental aspect of someone's personality. If a person is impulsive, then it is hard to become "not impulsive".
If a person has angry tendencies, then it is a struggle to handle that anger. Often people need help (ie. a therapist) to deal with these.
It is my experience that you can't tell someone to "turn your empathy into a superpower" the same way you can't tell them to "turn your anger into a superpower" - it just isn't that easy, takes time and effort.
Yes, it can be done, but success looks more like "I managed my anger so I can live a happier life" instead of "I channeled my anger and became a boxing champion". Think "I managed my empathy and set healthy boundaries". What would 'success' even look like in this context?
Of course, most people can muster the strength to choose to pass on the desert or the tryst. I think the parent is referring to the hard cases, where, only in retrospect, you have the clarity to see that you made the wrong choice and wish you'd done otherwise.
But of course you can't. And if you rewound the universe to the exact same starting conditions you still couldn't.
> I think the parent is referring to the hard cases
You only know what's 'hard' after you try to change them.
> But of course you can't. And if you rewound the universe to the exact same starting conditions you still couldn't.
That's too fatalistic. You can and do, but it's indeed hard.
I reject the idea that, to express an extreme case, we are powerless automatons of our worst instincts. We have free will and choices, just not always easy ones; we can change, but sometimes it takes a lot of work. People HN believe their startup can change the world and embrace all the hard work and mountains to climb; we have a much better chance of changing ourselves.
it is a finite resource which is why meditation and training is required for mastery.
people are capable of deciding to be better when they've the faculties and depth of experience and wisdom. Ever manage to troubleshoot a faulty canopy mid fall, or make a decision to cut the main and deploy the reserve parachute? you dont get to that mode of operation overnight.
You're talking about skills, not willpower. Every study I've seen suggests that willpower is not trainable. Maybe it is, that would be great.
Note, that you can train altruistic and empathetic appearing behaviors. So yes, even though you're all starving, the men eat first. Yes, you are going to risk your life doing X. Yes, you are going to tell everyone its okay and appear calm even while you're panicking.
Willpower is not an effective way to deal with emotions, beyond the very short term - and then you will have blowback. Suppressing your emotions is a great way to have them take over your life and without you being conscious of it (you suppressed them!).
Here is what I understand. I have no expertise, I have long studied and learned to apply these ideas, after trying the willpower approach for much of my life. Most of all, I encourage you to read what experts say; it's fundamental psychology (even if I denied it for a long time).
I have plenty of flaws but I am blessed with willpower, at a level that drives others crazy; I am always pushing the furthest, always the last to give up. Perhaps that's been built up because I used willpower to solve my problems most of my life; perhaps I used it because it was already a strength. I also used it for my emotions, as if they were an injured knee and I just had to tough it out and would run anyway. In hindsight, I was ignorant. I'm not sure if the following is what you seek, but feel free to ask questions and I'll try my best to answer.
Imagine there is a First Law of Emotional Dynamics, the Law of Preservation of Emotions. You cannot destroy them; you can transform them from one form to another (e.g., fear becomes anger). If you don't process them, they remain, sometimes lifelong (trauma, PTSD). Emotions are going to be there and they are going to have their say. If you try to suppress them, they will have their say without your input or consent. You will deal with them, in an unhealthy way (drinking and drugs are popular!) or in a healthy way. Your choice! The most practical tip I have is, replace unhealthy coping with healthy coping - the drive is genuine and normal; you just need a healthy way to take care of it.
Second Law: Input of emotions is from specific sources, internal and external. Output is by default toward the easiest target. Your boss screams at you, you supress your anger/fear/shame, you go home and find yourself yelling at whoever because they didn't turn off the light - a lot safer to yell at them than at your boss! Much more consequential and also typical: A child feels angry at their parents; the child can't express anger because their parents don't allow it, implicitly or otherwise; the child can't even blame the parents internally because a child is so dependent - for survival - on their parents and trusts whatever they say or imply - 'it can't be their fault'. So the child turns the anger inwardly, toward themselves, and feels shame (anger becomes shame, see the First Law). As they get older, their shame (an incredibly damaging emotion) becomes anger - they hate it - but they still don't turn it at their parents; they probably don't even realize the source. The anger is aimed at easiest targets around them, maybe their own children.
Third Law: Emotional energy is intangible, immeasurable, and indefinable, but it is real and it is limited. You have a limited capacity of emotional energy. I used to insist this was nonsense and that through willpower I would just keep going, and what was going to stop me? It was sort of like insisting that I was going to sprint a marathon. I can insist and have all the willpower I like but my body doesn't have the capacity and neither do our emotions. If you push past your capacity, there will be a rebound effect - I did this all the time, completely disregarding my emotions as a matter of course, and then I couldn't understand why, subsequently, I couldn't seem to function - 'I just need more willpower!'. You can imagine how that worked out. Now, I manage that capacity - I do things that build it up, I spend it selectively, I anticipate my limits, which I have learned about. Sometimes I do have to push myself beyond them, through willpower - if a loved one is seriously ill, then that is more important - but I am making a choice, I have built up my capacity over the years, and I plan for and manage the rebound in a healthy way.
......
But notice that I described my early perspective of emotion as like an injury, as if it's a malfunction or friction in the gears. More than anything else, it is you; it's the core of you, it's your actual experience of the world and your life, and it's also essential to judgment, instinct, intuition, etc. My early perspective was 180 degrees wrong: Have compassion for it, care for it, love it, it's important, it is your humanity. That change in perspective has transformed my experience of life, my ability to love, my perception and experience of the world, and also my instinct and intuition.
Well said. Reminds me of that Lowe/Cash song "The Beast in me". Need
to care for your inner wild animal. You might like Bowlby
(attachment), particularly with regard to how formative parent
relations affect you later.
I just wanted to thank you for putting all this out there. I don't have a substantive reply, and I didn't want to (keep) delay writing back until I had finished thinking about what you wrote.
You are very welcome. I can just keep the tab open and check back once in awhile (unless my browser crashes!) and if you reply, and if I see it, I'll respond.
> Don't numb it, master it and let it lead under control
Numbing it was never a conscious decision, it was an automatic learned response to pain after years / decades. Now that I'm more conscious of what's happening, I can begin to work with it, but personality traits like this are generally highly stable and resistant to change. Which isn't to say there's nothing that can be done about it, just that's challenging (and in the process, you may be losing some of the benefits of that learned behavior).
> personality traits like this are generally highly stable and
resistant to change.
Yes. Impossible to change some would say. So my message was wear it
with pride. There's a philosopher called Kierkegaard who would say
that you can't be "cured" of what you are. And since empathy is a
gift, instead make it a superpower. That happens when you control it
instead of it controlling you. Good luck, and I hope your gift brings
you great things.
> personality traits like this are generally highly stable and resistant to change
From one person's experience with other personality traits, it's both hard but just lots of hard work and determination.
> and in the process, you may be losing some of the benefits of that learned behavior
You will gain so much more, you can't even imagine now. You will look back and laugh at worrying about what you were going to lose. It's like forgetting how to run a super-marathon while learning that you have wings and how to fly.
> you to retain dignity, self-sacrifice, and thinking about _them_ more than ever
> That's precisely the time when you need to dig deep and let _reason_ take the lead
I would say when self-sacrifice, thinking of others first is what's called for, that's actually empathy leading, at its most high-functioning.
Empathy is taking the lead, but it's somehow a deeper kind, qualitatively distinct from day to day sympathy and personality. Sometimes a person you thought was rather heartless day to day, turns out to care for their buddies in such a moment, and you don't forget their actions.
Of course it is empathy in concert with reason. Reason, intuition, skill, knowledge - and that measured mind - are all required in difficult situations, but without empathy would often lead to self-preservation mode.
> deep down they are actually masters of the empathy they've carefully hidden.
It’s the generalization that is wrong. People are not permanently one way. They fluctuate. They are infatuated at 20, struggling for money at 30, tired at 40, getting things in the correct order at 50, disconnected at 60… They make different conclusions about life. They may save a kid at 30 and not when they themselves have a family. Or the opposite. Generalization is erroneous.
> Good sentiment. But when your being hurt emotionally and physically
most days. Numbness becomes your only real defense.
What you are alluding to sounds like abuse. As you can see in this
thread I am being chastised for offering unsolicited, condescending
advice about things I know nothing about - as if the vicarious snipers
knew anything about my experiences or expertise, and as if my tone was
out of place here.
If your comment pertains to yourself I'd heartily recommend you read
[1][2] below. People are using the word "numb". That could mean a lot
of things, drugs, alcohol, or other indulgences. But there are
specific dangers with the coping behaviour that clinicians call
"dissociation". I wish you well.
> But when your being hurt emotionally and physically most days. Numbness becomes your only real defense.
While I empathize with people using numbness, it's not true that it's the only defense. Hurt is something in you; it's your perceptual experience and you can control that. Someone hurts me because I let them. That doesn't excuse them, but takes away their power: I can look at it differently.
It's not a panacea, but I've been through what you've talked about and not surrendering my empathy, not letting them destroy that part of me, was something I was determined to do.
Compassion is a great too, your armor: Compassion for yourself, displacing the hurt from others, and for the abusers, which takes away much of their power.
I've noticed that at least some military officers, especially above a certain rank, seem to have this supernatural calm under stress. I read a story about a submarine accident, where some outsiders happened to be on-board, and they said that as the crew starting running around, the captain - who likely had just lost their career - got on the loudspeaker and said, in an almost friendly tone, 'hey, I know your hearts are pump, pump, pumping. Just remember your training and trust each other.' I've seen it in other places.
What is the training or technique used? I'd love to learn more about it.
Imagine having direct experience with these things, genuinely sharing your hard-earned experience of what works for you in the language you have available to you, and then some third-party who doesn't know anything about you misrepresents your statement and then tells you to "shut the fuck up about mental health problems you don't have."
the OP has mastered their emotional response and will be fine by their own reckoning. i wouldn’t be so direct if the person hadn’t insisted they could handle it. i was in fact respecting their autonomy by treating them in the exact way they said they prefer.
What are the odds that GP would post "I don't know exactly what these brain regions do, but I know that these transgendered people who had fMRI showing their brains function much closer to their identified gender should simply stop being transgendered by overriding/mastering the differences with reason and discipline."
I'm guessing zero... but because it's a study on empathy, it's totally a-ok to say "i don't know a thing about this, but since its not a problem for me, it shouldn't be a problem for you"
"While anger makes us certain in our righteous indignation, anxiety,
and surprise make us unsure of what’s going on and what will happen
next. And when we feel uncertain, we tend to fall back on what we know
to be true — namely, our own perspectives and feelings"
Rather than saying "You are close to understanding, but keep going", it would be more helpful to explain why you think that disciplined empathy is no longer empathy.
I agree with the previous poster, but I'm curious to learn what you mean.
The vagueness of the Dao De Ching is not in the book, it is in reader.
It is not myself that creates the Dao, but I can thank you for creating the Dao!
When a superior person hears of the Tao,
She diligently puts it into practice.
When an average person hears of the Tao,
he believes half of it, and doubts the other half.
When a foolish person hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud at the very idea.
If he didn’t laugh,
it wouldn’t be the Tao.
If you notice, much philosophy - generally defined, including religion - is vague. Much great art is vague. It may turn out that, unlike technical manuals, there is no value in spelling out everything. Either the reader engages or not and if they do, they don't need it spelled out - they create it in their own neural pathways, in their own mind, which is far more valuable than reading it. And if they don't, it doesn't matter anyway. It's not a new idea:
From the Christian Gospels (Mark 4)
Jesus tells the parable of the sower, ending, ""He who has ears, let him hear." And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that 'they may indeed see but not perceive, / and may indeed hear but not understand, / lest they should turn and be forgiven.'" And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.""
From the Quran:
As for the unbelievers, alike it is to them / whether thou hast warned them or hast not warned them, / they do not believe. / God has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, / and on their eyes is a covering, / and there awaits them a mighty chastisement.
The controversial and difficult question is why these medieval thinkers chose the allegorical form, and whether the text can be understood without its allegorical form. Avicenna tells us that what he purports to do by allegory is to convey one message to the "many" in sensible imagery they can understand, while conveying a different message to the philosophically minded few .... Neoplatonic and Christian writers ... [cited] the importance of not 'casting one's pearls before swine' ...
I'd argue that you're conflating philosophy and religion, and that unlike what you're suggesting by that conflation, much of philosophy isn't vague - it's careful and well thought out. Here's a random passage from Decarte's Meditations:
I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and
the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by
philosophical rather than theological argument. For although it is quite
enough for us faithful ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the
human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it
certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of any
religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue, unless, to
begin with, we prove these two facts by means of the natural reason.
What about this is vague? He's clearly laying out his goals and how he intends to do it. If you want to say that religion, as a particulary subset of philosophical thought, is often vague, then sure, but a lot of philosophy is very intentional and focused. It's setting out a goal and working towards achieving said goal, not trying to write in a manner that will appeal to everyone.
You are claiming that the writing in modern Western philosopy is known for clarity? Also, those aren't Decartes' words, which were in Latin (or French?).
A wolf behaves differently than another wolf. Yet they are both wolves. Even the same wolf expresses differently in different contexts or in arbitrarily similar contexts at different times. Yet he never stops being a wolf. Even a wolf in a cage is a wolf.
To say otherwise is to say there is no such thing as wolf or that there is a single platonic wolf and all other wolves are inauthentic. Either of these may be true, but I doubt there is much practical advice in this idea for learning to deal with a lack of boundaries created by empathetic confusion.
> To say otherwise is to say there is no such thing as wolf
I am not saying otherwise. There is no such thing as a wolf.
Yet there is.
Our language is a tool we use to categorize an infinite reality. Like you said, there are an infinite amount of wolves, but we reduce them using language. There is nothing wrong with this until we start thinking our language is the reality.
So where is the border between wolf and dog? If A wolf is nice too a human do we suddenly call it a dog? Does not the very distinction of a wolf and a dog rely, not on the species, but on the human? Does a dog think still think it is a wolf? Is a dog just a wolf that tricks us so it can get free food and shelter?
We do the same thing with empathy. By defining it with language we reduce it and confine it which it cannot be reduced or confined. Like everything else, empathy is infinite and unlimited in its expression.
I don't know enough neuroscience to know what the "right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" is exactly but I know that you can over-ride/master it with reason and discipline.
So I think there's something more to people allowing their better nature to slip under stress than simple brain chemicals.
A colonel told me, that in the moment of most stress that's when the men need you most of all, and need you to retain dignity, self-sacrifice, and thinking about _them_ more than ever. When everyone is shitting themselves we revert to "I'm alright Jack" self-preservation mode. That's precisely the time when you need to dig deep and let _reason_ take the lead. Compassion/altruism etc is a personality structure, not a fleeting feeling, so it's encoded into your rational decision making.
So a ton of training is about getting you to "snap out of yourself".
The body moves in fast time, but if the mind can still stay in slow, measured mode, that's how the best comes out in some poeple under adversity. Hardballs who have no love for humanity will jump on to the tracks to save a kid from a subway train, because deep down they are actually masters of the empathy they've carefully hidden.
I guess that tension between what you know you should do and what you find yourself instinctively inclined to do - is conscience.