Is empathy more likely when we can see, smell, taste and feel what someone else sees, smells, taste and feel?

 

Photo by Joey Yu on Unsplash

When we say this shirt is beautiful, we actually believe without any doubt that this is a statement of the truth, the solid and undeniable truth.

 

We think that we are seeing a beautiful shirt.

 

The reality is that we are not seeing “a beautiful shirt”.  We are seeing something which is conventionally agreed by almost everyone as a “shirt” and our mind adds “beautiful” to it. It is equally valid to call it an “ugly shirt” because another person will see the object conventionally agreed as a “shirt” but his mind adds the “ugly” part to it.

 

If you think it is “beautiful”, it is.

If you think it is “ugly”, it is.

 

Once we realise we are not actually “seeing” a beautiful shirt. The eyes don’t see a beautiful shirt. It’s our mind that see the beautiful shirt.

 

Two people with perfect eyesight, with all the components and nerves of the eyes functioning perfectly, can disagree 180 degrees on what they “see”.

 

That’s because we don’t “see” what someone else sees.

 

We see an object, but before we cognise it, we have already automatically added layers upon layers of decorations coming from our past experiences and prejudices to it, and this informs what we believe with 100% certainty what we see.

 

Once we have cognise this thing we believe we have seen, we will defend it and want everyone else to agree that’s what they see too. And if other people see it differently, we will utterly label that person using words would would not feel good about.

 

What we “hear”, what we “smell”, what we “taste”, what we “feel” …………….they are actually results of what we are attached to.  

 

I wonder if instead of saying “I see a beautiful shirt”, I tell myself “someone known as Maurice sees a beautiful shirt”, this would remove “I” from the seeing and by this, I would allow that Peter sees differently and John sees different exactly the same shirt.

 

Would that make empathy easier to practice?  Isn’t empathy more likely when we can see what someone else sees, smells, taste and feel?