Empathy
Empathy Farming
[em-puh-thee fahr-ming] noun
The practice of cultivating an understanding of or identification with the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
Empathy: "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another"
Perspective taking ... attunement ... theory of mind ... connection ... understanding ...
This is the subject of Mark's blog and book.
Empathy
Why do we feel empathy for some people but not others?
Is empathy always a good thing?
Would you believe some say it’s not - that empathy can actually cause war and genocide?
Can we learn to empathize?
Or is empathy a feeling that just kind of happens (or doesn’t happen)
and is out of our control?
My long-term empathy project asks these and other questions of a concept and feeling so often championed as the antidote to our troubled relationships and political rage, as the solution to our world’s many problems.
My Empathy Farming work is growing into a blog and a book … and cultivating a network of people as concerned with empathy as I am.
People empathize with certain humans (instead of other humans) simply because we know them personally and think we understand them. Maybe we share the same nationality or home neighborhood or race. Maybe we've walked similar paths in life. Or encountered the same traumas.
We can actually empathize (or fail to empathize) for incredibly mundane reasons: Consider the connection you might feel with someone just because they look like you or share your fashion sense or root for the same sports team.
Yet so much is at stake: Our empathy influences our ability to relate to, communicate with, and even care for other people - whether they’re our nearby neighbors or strangers on the other side of the city or other side of the world.
I have a lifelong preoccupation with trying to understand what it is in our experiences, our worldviews and religions, our biases - even in the electrical impulses running our brains - that enables us to grasp others' thoughts and feelings. Or else prevents us from doing so.
Empathy Farmer’s Almanac explores these questions of empathy, because how we answer (or can’t answer) them has incredible consequences for us — affecting where we live and play and go to school, how we spend and donate our money, how we determine (and argue about) our political views. And even who we love.
Read entries from Empathy Farmer’s Almanac to the right, or else explore the full blog here.
Contact me if you want to discuss empathy or hear about my Empathy Farming book in the works.
Why do we feel empathy for some people but not others?
Is empathy always a good thing?
Would you believe some say it’s not - that empathy can actually cause war and genocide?
Can we learn to empathize?
Or is empathy a feeling that just kind of happens (or doesn’t happen)
and is out of our control?
My long-term empathy project asks these and other questions of a concept and feeling so often championed as the antidote to our troubled relationships and political rage, as the solution to our world’s many problems.
My Empathy Farming work is growing into a blog and a book … and cultivating a network of people as concerned with empathy as I am.
People empathize with certain humans (instead of other humans) simply because we know them personally and think we understand them. Maybe we share the same nationality or home neighborhood or race. Maybe we've walked similar paths in life. Or encountered the same traumas.
We can actually empathize (or fail to empathize) for incredibly mundane reasons: Consider the connection you might feel with someone just because they look like you or share your fashion sense or root for the same sports team.
Yet so much is at stake: Our empathy influences our ability to relate to, communicate with, and even care for other people - whether they’re our nearby neighbors or strangers on the other side of the city or other side of the world.
I have a lifelong preoccupation with trying to understand what it is in our experiences, our worldviews and religions, our biases - even in the electrical impulses running our brains - that enables us to grasp others' thoughts and feelings. Or else prevents us from doing so.
Empathy Farmer’s Almanac explores these questions of empathy, because how we answer (or can’t answer) them has incredible consequences for us — affecting where we live and play and go to school, how we spend and donate our money, how we determine (and argue about) our political views. And even who we love.
Read entries from Empathy Farmer’s Almanac to the right, or else explore the full blog here.
Contact me if you want to discuss empathy or hear about my Empathy Farming book in the works.
From the Empathy Farmer's Almanac on Substack
Why do we feel empathy for some people but not others?
Is empathy always a good thing?
Would you believe some say it’s not - that empathy can actually cause war and genocide?
Can we learn to empathize?
Or is empathy a feeling that just kind of happens (or doesn’t happen)
and is out of our control?
My long-term empathy project asks these and other questions of a concept and feeling so often championed as the antidote to our troubled relationships and political rage, as the solution to our world’s many problems.
My Empathy Farming work is growing into a blog and a book … and cultivating a network of people as concerned with empathy as I am.
People empathize with certain humans (instead of other humans) simply because we know them personally and think we understand them. Maybe we share the same nationality or home neighborhood or race. Maybe we've walked similar paths in life. Or encountered the same traumas.
We can actually empathize (or fail to empathize) for incredibly mundane reasons: Consider the connection you might feel with someone just because they look like you or share your fashion sense or root for the same sports team.
Yet so much is at stake: Our empathy influences our ability to relate to, communicate with, and even care for other people - whether they’re our nearby neighbors or strangers on the other side of the city or other side of the world.
I have a lifelong preoccupation with trying to understand what it is in our experiences, our worldviews and religions, our biases - even in the electrical impulses running our brains - that enables us to grasp others' thoughts and feelings. Or else prevents us from doing so.
Empathy Farmer’s Almanac explores these questions of empathy, because how we answer (or can’t answer) them has incredible consequences for us — affecting where we live and play and go to school, how we spend and donate our money, how we determine (and argue about) our political views. And even who we love.
Read entries from Empathy Farmer’s Almanac to the right, or else explore the full blog here.
Contact me if you want to discuss empathy or hear about my Empathy Farming book in the works.