Pandemic of Empathy

We have been living in the time of a health pandemic and people are suffering.

No person is exempt from the reality of a worldwide virus that maims and kills in numbers large enough to get the world’s attention. In two years, between 6-10 million human beings have died from it. Others are living with extreme disability and some seem to have had little to no effect, even as we hope that there are not latent outcomes that rise up later in a person’s life.

The human response to these threats has been everything from breathtakingly sensible and kind to irrational and cruel.

We are truly a mixed bag in our human natures.

Empathy, or the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, has been severely challenged as a cornerstone of our human experience. I believe the pandemic of empathy is going to negatively impact humanity long after Covid19 has been integrated into daily life.

My own empathy has been shaken and sorely challenged to understand the people who have rejected vaccination against Covid19 and who shun the use of a hospital mask in crowded situations, that I believe helps keep everyone safe. I have been guilty of a lack of empathy.

Instead of banding together and working to defeat a health threat that effects everyone, we have allowed ourselves to be divided into factions that are not kind to each other but vilify, name call, humiliate, and take power in being separate.

This needs to change.

Another problem this pandemic has brought to light is that because mostly the elderly are dying and being severely affected, our society’s disregard for our elderly people is showing.

Where is our outrage?

I believe we all could use a renewed dose of empathy for ALL the variations of our human condition and all the variations of our human opinions.

Is outrage a first step?