Capacity for empathy

Understanding begets empathy.

That by itself is a very simple concept. People had, since ancient times, feared what they do not know or understand. From the roars of thunder, to creation itself.

When one fear, one hides one’s fear. But when many fear, they band together and they direct this fear into hate and prejudice.

They stand together and ridicule the different, the deviants, the unknowns.

Today I was at the bus stop, when a man walked into the bus stop. The fact that he was not mentally stable was quickly established; he was very panicky and touchy and throughout the duration I was there at the bus stop, he never once stopped moving.

Then I noticed the lady beside me inching away from him as he walked to her side. Not very close, within two arm’s length.

I find it rather tragic; is our society’s capacity for empathy so little?

He had not sinned. He did not ask for his condition. And he is but like you and me, albeit his flaws being more obvious.

I noticed he kept shooing the buses away. When one bus arrives, he would wave the bus away, like he did not want to see the bus.

I wonder what was going through his mind as he did that.

Was it fear? Fear for something he cannot comprehend? A bus is something most of us know and understand, but to him it may be something foreign and frightening.

But unlike the rest of us, he does not hide his fear. Maybe because his mental condition does not render him incapable of doing so, but the fact remains.

He, like us, feel and fear too. We fear him, and he fears us.

What is your capacity of empathy? Have you tried understanding what you fear?

Or did you just continue fearing?