Originally posted by irishcream
hmm...this is an interesting debate...
I mean, if i've known someone for a long, long time, i can usually understand why i'm so empathic to their situation.
Example of something that happened just this evening.
A friend of mine and I had an argument, over something really silly. I've known this person for nearly three years, and i can just tell as soon as they walk in the room, that something might not be right, if it isn't.
So, we had this row. But when we'd calmed down, i felt terrible, and i could tell, without even looking at him that he was feeling as terrible as i was!
I put that down to having spent enough time around him to have learned what makes him tick.
Now flip the coin.
Someone i've known for not even half that time. Someone i've never met. Yet i can sense what they are thinking 80% of the time, to the point that i've thought it before they've said it.
I feel their emotions with the same intensity they feel mine...
And this is the bit i can't explain.
So, what is Empathy based on?
The Power of Knowledge? or can there really be such deep connections between people, that have no real explanation, but they are nevertheless real?
Yes... I don't know what people are so insistent upon skirting around the more parapsychological explanations. It is almost not supernatural anymore, what people can sense about other people.
I've learned not to hold up signs and wave my arms when meeting people at Airports. I simply look at them. As people invariably do, they sense when they are being watched and look around to see who is staring at them. Experiment if you will -- stare at somebody from off to the side or from behind and see how long it takes for them to turn around. No, not a beautiful woman, they are used to being watched and learn to ignore it... it is their way of rejecting a first advance. But they knew they are being stared at. I knew one beautiful woman who would know she was being watched from behind sure enough so that she would hold us the 'bird sign' when she knew she was being watched by somebody she did not invite to view her from behind.
So, what is it in a person that knows he or she is being watched?
I was a World Traveler. It is understood among World Travelers that they are to hone these subtle sorts of perceptions. A common World Traveler conversation would be "Why not go down this block?" "No... It doesn't feel right".
Young people often have trouble listening to their 'feelings'. They don't want to seem suspicious and untrusting, and so they will force themselves to walk straight into muggings and rapes, even though they are ready enough afterward to admit that they 'knew' something was wrong. They had supposed that if they had no 'reason' to worry, then there was nothing to worry about. But these misfortunes teach them that feelings no longer should be dismissed.
Back in Vietnam, the stupid sargeants would rotate 'point men' -- make everyone take their turn up front. and the platoon would walk into ambush after ambush. people would get killed. The smart sergeants would keep his eye on his men until he noticed some crazy squirrel who always had the right feelings -- paranoid, but always right. That is the guy that makes the perfect Point Man. Suddenly the Platoon becomes ambush proof. The officers don't want to hear about paranormal abilities, and so it would simply be said that Jonesy, or whoever, could 'smell em'.
And about yourself, Irish, I agree with that dream you had. You have your feet on shore, but you keep close enough to feel the waves come in. You are in the Mind, but you stay close enough to the heart to know what is going on 'in the deep'.
|
|
Bookmarks