empathy and truth
Empathy is a collective coping mechanism invented by the poor and powerless. Hence the reason why feeling powerful is inversely correlated with being able to empathise.
But empathy does not only bind us together, it also acts as a gateway to truth. Hence the reason why powerful people slowly lose touch with reality.
Being able to imagine what an electron does requires you to literally put yourself in its shoes. It also requires you to listen to what others felt when they put themselves in its shoes.
If excelling at your profession requires getting closer to truth, stay away from powerful people and their ego boosting contexts. Today's best artists, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors are not writing books or giving TED Talks. They remain outside mainstream and are mostly unheard of. In fact, once they gain attention, praises and prizes, they almost immediately lose their cutting-edge status.
It is no coincidence that empathy is a trait shared by all child prodigies:
Most intriguing of all, perhaps, is the consistent finding that prodigies share an outsize empathy: a finely tuned sensitivity to the feelings of others as well as the overwhelming desire to do good. One prodigy’s mom reflects that her son “just felt more from the time he was born. He just had so much emotion and feeling inside of him.” At age 2, another prodigy wept uncontrollably when he heard his father playing Rossini’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa. He later stated that he’d felt connected to each note of music he heard and “knew that music was an expression of his soul.”
- The Link Between Complicated Pregnancies and Child Prodigies (Michael Jawer)
It is also no coincidence that Dostoevsky felt greater mental freedom every time he gambled away his entire savings.
