October 1st is rapidly approaching. Like the brave people say "I'm not dead yet." I was told it was one hundred degrees yesterday afternoon. It sure felt like it.
What follows is long, but I've posted it because it is far from boring.
Bodies in Sync
A synopsis, the article proposes that empathy has its roots in physiological reactions more so than what is consciously rolling around in our noggins. Having had the most fun in my life ever while wrestling, tickling and laughing like an ape does, I couldn't agree more.
So go read it.
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/251555/sept
That is where empathy and sympathy startwith the synchronization of bodiesnot in the higher regions of imagination, or in the ability to consciously reconstruct how we would feel if we were in someone elses shoes. And yet empathy is often presented as a voluntary process, requiring role taking, higher cognition, and even language. Accordingly, most scholarly literature on empathy is completely human centered, never mentioning other animals. As if a capacity so visceral and pervasive could be anything other than biological!
Powerful. An easy explanation as to why we yawn when everyone else yawns, cough when they cough, cry when they cry, feel when they feel.
Mood contagion serves to coordinate activities, which is crucial for any traveling species (which most primates are). If my companions are feeding, I had better do the same, because once they move off, my chance to forage will be gone. The individual that doesnt stay in tune with what all the others are doing will lose out, like the traveler who doesnt go to the restroom when the bus has stopped.
Once again powerful.
A digression: It is fascinating that we try so hard to encourage the ideals of self reliance and independence, yet humans biologically are not wired that way. Yes, it is great in one way to be able to spend time alone and to be able to survive alone, but the reality is we're wired to be together. The experiment of "complete independence" is worthwhile though, just so a person can learn that they're more than likely not really into it. I have gone days at a time without interacting with any other people at all and I have to say, it isn't as fulfilling as lunch with co-workers even. The human that isn't in tune is at a serious disadvantage to other humans. Isolation can be a breeding ground for self damaging thoughts:End of digression.
I agree with practically everything proposed in the article but it stimulates some ideas that I didn't expect. So, if empathy is this uncontrollable form of imitation that we simply "do" without thinking, how far down does that rabbit hole go?
According to Ulf Dimberg, a psychologist at Swedens Uppsala University, we dont decide to be empathicwe simply are. Having pasted small electrodes onto his subjects faces so as to register the tiniest muscle movements, he presented them with pictures of angry and happy faces on a computer screen. Humans frowned in reaction to angry faces and pulled up the corners of their mouths in reaction to happy ones, even if the pictures flashed on the screen too briefly for conscious perception. That is a rather primitive kind of empathy known as emotional contagiona first step on the road toward full-blown empathy.
Forgive me for the rest of this, but there are so many thoughts about this, and they're a little bit disorganized, but it might be of interest to some of you reading.
For myself a song expressing sad feelings can make me feel sad, a song expressing anger angry. What about more prominent things like the people in our lives? If a person is strongly physiologically emphatic, there is more than likely a lack of self awareness regarding what is happening to them. A physical form of imitation that is not controlled by us, but simply is.
Questions that come up for me include:
(oh I'm answering them for me, kind of, but feel free to provide your own answers, I'm curious.)
What kinds of changes would a more emphatetic person experience surrounding themselves with people who are kind, gentle and caring?
Exhibit A: Me 
What kinds of changes would they experience surrounding themselves with bitter, cynical, cruel people, people who don't have hope?
I'd guess that they might be a bitter and hostile person. Which is an awful fate. Or worse than that, maybe lie to themselves and those around them to "fit" in. Which works just fine when surrounded by others who are liars and fakes, but does not work at all when surrounded by those that try to be genuine. More often than not people who are genuine about who they are have little tolerance for those that choose to play "lets pretend everything is okay."
A digression again, but this does not mean that good times aren't possible under the worst circumstances. Quite the contrary actually.
I've personally had to draw away from so many people who are caught up in making cruel jokes, obsessed with being tough and or mean, or who have given up on being kind to all. A first sign for me that I won't get along with a person is proclamations of being proud to be mean in some way. I don't want to involuntarily imitate or feel that. Yes, it can be fun on occasion but it is really no way to live. I've also had to draw away from people who pretend to have positive qualities, but are actually more concerned about how it makes them look socially. More often than not the empathy radar gets all out of whack around people like that, the feeling is negative but the words are positive (in other words Republicans?)
What happens when more emphatetic people fight, or when more emphatetic people experience tragedy?
I think I know the answer to this one. A euphemism: It is not good.
What happens when a person that is emphatetic has events happen that make them scale back their empathy for whatever reason? How does it change interpersonal relationships, and what kinds of decisions are made when they are truly out of sync with those around them?
My guess is the decisions result in further isolation from others. This really ties into studies about community and social influences, but stands out because of the lack of conscious choice.
I've been out of sync myself recently (it wasn't obvious was it? 
), and it took plenty of care to get me feeling like I'm back in sync with the people I have very carefully chosen to surround myself with.
Another interesting thought is if communication is done mostly online, is it even possible to have empathy without honesty about feelings and events, or too even have true empathy at all? Empathy and Sympathy are about the body imitating remember. As the research says there is emotional contagion which is simply the first step, but it is not full blown emphatetic understanding.
Since I actually do bother to pay attention. I'm aware that more than one person in my closer social circles and some even not so close have been able to "feel" what I've been feeling in an emphatic way. I'm fairly confident that in the recent past it was probably not a happy experience, but hardly awful. I'm sorry about that and even more sorry about the explanation offered.
Thinking about this personally and non-personally, it appears it would be fairly easy to bury difficult emotions to manage like sadness under easier to manage negative emotions such as anger and bitterness.
This is a bit of a leap, but would we automatically seek out people that are more emphatetic to those negative emotions when we are experiencing them? People who are more receptive to whatever negativity we have inside us? Kind of a mirror image that will reflect the negative feelings back at us, and then strenghten them, giving us more resolve to continue with the negative? I hate the cliche but birds of a feather, flock together.
For example if a person is afraid, often they do not seek to be around those that are brave. Do not even want to be around the brave and instead seek advice from other people that are fearful. It seems like it would result in poor decision making. I've found that surrounding myself with brave people is best when I'm fearful.
To continue with that theme, I know so many socially anxious people that surround themselves with other socially anxious people and they seem to encourage the social anxiety among each other, making life so very, very complicated. You have to forgive me if this offends, but I think that is really silly.
How many times do we all see it where a person has something terrible happen in their lives, and then immediately rushes to surround themselves with people who are of low character? People who are generally considered less than appetizing by those who are kind, caring, intelligent, successful, so on and so forth. I think most of us over 20 have been there, probably more than once.
It is the classic scene, a guy recently broken up surrounding himself with sexist assholes at a bar. A girl broken up surrounding herself with bitches. Or the other common mishap, what a good friend likes to call poor mate selection skills, finding a person that is more emphatic to the bad feelings than the good.
How much of it all is voluntary? How much is involuntarily seeking out people emphatetic to the negative feelings? There are plenty of cliche statements about people seeking out a person that fits whatever level they've sunk too. Perhaps, there is some truth to it all?
Only, I don't personally seek out other broken people when I'm broken, quite the opposite actually. I in fact shy away from anyone that encourages me to hold on to negative emotions and will practically run away from a person encouraging me to continue to feel things that I view as unhealthy. Except for my youngest brother who makes me laugh uncontrollably with his assesment of all situations.
There is the question of if a close friend that is an emphatetic person begins to automatically feel something they're not familiar with at all, because a person is expressing the emotion. Is it fair to not share with them what the cause of that is? In my recent past more than one person after being around me for a short while, instantly identified the grief with the simple question "Did some one die?"
I personally get so confused when my body starts imitating a particular emotion and I'm not sure what the source of it is. Worse still when it is something I'm not fully familiar with, or when there is an intensity behind it that I can't understand. Seething rage is the one I'm least familiar with, I try to let my anger out as safely as possible, as quickly as it enters me. Luckily that has been universally agreed upon as the healthy way to proceed by practically every psychologist, ever.
When you're angry, because you're being emphatetic to another persons anger, what exactly are you supposed to do about it?
Which brings me to another interesting thought. When people spend large amounts of time with each other being emphatetic, reading what the other person is feeling seems to become a part of you. Acting becomes some what impossible with people who have shared that much "closeness" for lack of a better word.
My youngest brother for all his bravado and acting skills can't fool me into thinking he is okay when he isn't no matter what he says or does, I don't have to ask, I don't have to think about it, all I have to do is stand near him. A simple look at his latest facebook picture and I know whether or not it is time to call him and say "Hey man, do you need me to drive over?"
Interesting aside, but there are so many people who assume that they can hide it all away who are probably wishing that people who are more emphatic didn't exist at all. Who think they'd rather just throw a fresh coat of paint on that drastically damaged car, the engine doesn't run right, the brakes are shot, but hey we can pretty this fucker up like you wouldn't believe. Until some hard driving happens everything appears to be just fine.
Perhaps, the ability to be involuntarily emphatetic is what "listening to ones heart" is all about? Speaking to that particular topic, for the first time in forever I'm feeling sleepy and I think it is because I heard my room mate pass out in a chair and start snoring loudly.
As is common recently, I've taken the article and applied it to personal situations, but from that a lot of non-personal thought is getting generated.
I'm really curious about what anyone else who read the article thought. Tomorrow I'm gonna write about an article that is even more interesting, but not as "trivial" as this.
I will need to come back and read this when I have the attention to do so sincerely.
In the meantime...
Like the brave people say "I'm not dead yet."
I tried to go with Richard Pryor as well, but shit luck would have it.
-TM