School Me Saturday 11/9/24-empathy

This is a warning!

Heed it well.

The more you are educated and the more you seek out education, the more empathy you find yourself experiencing.

Think about it.

At the collegiate level, you are exposed to ideas that you have never thought before. Not only that you are meeting people from all different walks of life. And being exposed to their troubles. Suddenly the person that you have been taught to “other” is a real boy.

Or girl.

I really only wrote that for comedic effect and to make you think back to Pinocchio. And his very real desire to be real.

Furthering your education you start to consider the concept of what it means to be real. Pinocchio’s definition is not the same as yours.

Because you are not Pinocchio.

And your mind is blown open by the idea that some people want different things and that some people use different goalposts to consider what is good or bad.

And you realize that even the words good and bad are not enough to explain the world.

Because everyone experiences the world differently.

Your universe has suddenly expanded and now you can’t other Joan, the international student in your class who came seeking a path to creating a better life back home. Or Daniel(le) who has so many questions about what makes a good person, a good person, and is trying to outrun their small town.

It is too late to not meet Joan or Daniel(le).

Your eyes have been opened to the terrors that governmental policies can bring to other people.

Where, before, you would have listened and done what the government told you. But now you know that there is two or three or more sides to a story.

And all we are trying to do is make life a little better for those who have not got the same privileges or power that we were born into.

Boom.

Empathy.

So sorry.

No, I’m not.