Compassion

One reader, a prominent surgeon on the west coast, recently asked me to ponder compassion. He asked, "Is it dead?"

When you read the papers and watch the news, it can certainly look dead. The world seems full of hatred, anger, mean-spiritedness, resentment, bitterness, and cries for revenge. Comb through reader comments online for mainstream media. You don't have to go find dark corners of the internet to come across streams of vitriol and out-of-control nastiness. It seems to be a vile current in which far too much of humanity swims.

The great physicist Stephen Hawking recently said that in his view the chief threat to the continuation of life on earth is human aggression. From embattled areas in the middle east to the street corners of US cities, and even in the executive suites of too many global companies, there is often far more aggression on display than kindness, goodness, and gentleness.

Where can compassion be found? Whether you find your greatest insight into human nature in the scientific story of evolution, or in religious diagnoses of our condition, one thing is clear: Self centeredness is the main theme, whether in biology or the Bible, and even in Buddhist texts. The struggle to survive in a challenging environment encourages a focus on the self and its needs, along with an aggressiveness in meeting those needs and defending against any threat. On the evolutionary accounts, all life becomes hardwired in self and survival. And such things as cooperation, collaboration, community, and finally compassion, all arise within close kin groups for the sake of greater survival chances. But outside those groups, these noble things can be hard to find. There are parallel religious accounts that cite a drive for independence, control, and self assertion as the key to our problems. And none of these conditions is conducive to compassion.

What is compassion? A fellow feeling that interprets love as kindness. It's etymologically a "feeling along with" another that sees the other's needs and wants, weaknesses, and hopes, aspirations and desires with understanding and acceptance that undergirds and contextualizes any difference or moral judgment.

Compassion puts itself into the place of another, and acts with loving understanding. Compassion moves out of the self and into a mode of helping, serving, and lifting up those who are in any sort of need. And we're all in some sort of need, aren't we?

Compassion is most often too quiet to gain wide notice, or the attention of the media. It still lives, and takes place each day, and in sometimes quite unexpected places. There are locales stridently hostile to it. And there are other domains where it flourishes. But it's still a part of the mix of our world. I see it often. And I remind myself now and then to be more attentive to how I might let it flow through me.

I bet you do, too. And of course, the less we see it, the more we need to be it.

Familiarity

There's an old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt." And I think it's wrong, at least, as normally understood. I suspect that familiarity rather breeds a lack of awareness. The most familiar things, we look beyond. We rarely focus properly on them. We take them for granted. We ignore them. And that creates problems.

What's the closest, most familiar thing of all to each of us? Our own mental stream or theater of consciousness. The solitariness and uniqueness of our inner experience. Nobody else has my state of consciousness right now. Nobody else has yours. And we can know only as much about it as you might be prepared to share and reveal. But it can never be shared fully. The inner sanctum of you can never be fully put into words and conveyed to another person to the extent that they would know 100% what it's like to be you, to think like you, see like you, feel like you. 

And I don't think we spend enough time pondering that inner self. When the Greeks advised "Know Yourself" they meant all of our inner reality, including things normally hidden to our conscious states. But they also meant this. What is the flow of your experience, in your mental and spiritual hiddenness? What tonality of feeling or attitude colors the inner you throughout the day? Is it helping you to develop into the person you want to be, or is it holding you back? Is it conveying patterns into the future that belong to your past, but that will prevent the best outcomes you most desire? We ignore our inner lives to our great detriment.

And then, I think, the second ring of familiarity may be our bodies. We too often ignore one or more aspects of our physical being in ways that aren't conducive to health and flourishing. Sure, some people seem to fixate on their bodies. But most of us ignore some aspect of our physical needs that would benefit from more attention.

And then, think beyond yourself: The next ring of familiarity may be your immediate family. The things of the world that demand our attention, added to those that lure our attention, can easily cause us to overlook, and pay insufficient attention to, the closest people around us. And that's deeply detrimental, to us, and to them.

We need reminders now and then not to let the most familiar things in our lives go begging for our attention, which is almost always focused elsewhere. The stuff that's elsewhere will never enhance our lives well, unless we're taking care of the most intimate parts of our existence and experience. So my advice today is: Don't let familiarity breed either contempt or unawareness - or, rather, what may actually be the contempt that consists in habitual unawareness. Rather, use the intimacy and proximity of those closest things for proper exploration and cultivation, creating a sound and healthy foundation for all else.

The Mirror Advice

"I celebrate myself and sing myself." - Walt Whitman

Many years ago, I heard Dr Ruth Westheimer, America's most famous sex therapist ever, give a talk to a hundred corporation presidents and their spouses. She was hilarious. And wise. At one point, she really surprised the group by recommending to all the men that, as soon as possible, they find a full length mirror, take off all their clothes in front of it, and just stand there admiring themselves for a couple of minutes. She explained that we don’t celebrate ourselves enough.

That got quite a reaction. Hours later, I was scheduled to go out to dinner with Dr Ruth, and was to meet her at a specified time in front of the table where she was signing books for all the presidents. I had dashed down the hall to the Men’s Room, and ended up having a couple of philosophical conversations along the way, as often happens in public places, and I got to Dr. Ruth about three minutes later than scheduled.  When I suddenly appeared, she made a face and pointed to her watch. I said “Sorry, Ruth, I passed a full length mirror along the way.”

I don't necessarily recommend what she advised. And in an age of ego and narcisism, we do have to be careful with Whitman's sentiment, as well. But I do believe that it's important to aproach life with a celebratory attitude and an appreciation for what we've been given, on the inside or out. 

Think about the uniqueness that is you. Celebrate the being you have, whether in proximity to a reflective surface, or not. And find a new way to be thankful for all that is you. 

Today.