Empathy

EMPATHY (n.) - the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and/or vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and/or experience of another without having those feelings, thoughts, and experience explicitly communicated; also : the capacity for this

Perhaps an odd subject for a holiday associated with "tough", and "hard", and "dark", but today I was reminded of the importance of empathy. It is empathy that enables us to show compassion to others, that allows us to anticipate the needs of those important to us, that helps us communicate our love and friendship.

Utter crap, you say? Let me put it this way, would something be lost from the gesture if you had to ask someone to open a door for you? To bring you flowers? To say "I love you"? Unless you are one of those gifted people who spontaneously do (the exactly right) things for others, empathy is key.

There's a person in my life lacking in empathy. Noticeably, consistently, painfully lacking in empathy. I've known this for ages and I also know that they're fabulous otherwise. It's just that the empathy-lack crops up in unexpected places, or with astonishing severity, and knocks me on my butt.

And that pisses me off. Today I was inwardly stewing over their empathy-lack and the unfairness of it, the predictable, unchanging nature of it. But after I stewed a bit, I realized this must be harder on them than it is on me. Imagine going through life pissing people off and not knowing how you did it?

So, next time, I'm going to borrow a sentiment from one of my favorite bloggers and inwardly repeat "God bless their little heart" until I'm no longer upset. Or I fall asleep (whichever).

Shameless Plug

I promise not to make a habit of it, but sometimes something is too wonderful, too enjoyable not be endorsed in a public forum.

Given the number of times The Oatmeal has reduced me to tears and/or snorting, I feel obligated to shout his genius from the mountaintops. The offbeat examples and poignant visuals should be mandatory daily viewing; the grammar-related comics make me want to have his babies. Or—if The Oatmeal is reading this—I want us to ride off into the sunset on grizzly bears towing party gorillas that know how to use semicolons. Or em dashes (either will do).

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_changes

"We have found a witch. May we burn her?"

"I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!"
"Er, but, you are dressed as one."
"THEY dressed me up like this."
"No! Nooo! We didn't! We didn't!"
"And this isn't my nose, it's a false one!"
"Well... we did do the nose." Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail

As soon as I sent out the previous post, I realized I hadn't addressed one of my blog's possible associations. No, I am not a witch. I am not in a cult or a coven, and I won't be posting things of that nature. I'm a practicing Catholic, actually.

Also, I do know that the proper spelling is "Morgan le Fay" (so please don't comment endlessly on this). I'm more "fey" than "fay" and that's that.

So why involve her at all? Because Morgan le Fay is a wonderful badass, and a great feminist study. She wasn't really a villain until the French got hold of the Arthur legends. Mordred is the son of her sister Morgause in the earlier versions, and in some versions, she even nurses Arthur back to health on Avalon. However they differ, most agree that Morgan Le Fay is powerful, accomplished, and a worthy adversary for Team Merlin-Arthur. She's so much more interesting than Guinevere! She's also had a couple comic book appearances and that thrills my little nerd soul.

Plus, I bet you'd recognize her before Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of battle, fertility, and cats. So there!

An Inauspicious Beginning

Argh! Ack! Ugh! So, it has come to this. I'm blogging. I'm blogging to simultaneously empty my head and better my writing skills (so this is theoretically a win-win thing. At least until someone starts flaming me).

So, what shall I be writing about? Nerdy things. Seattle-life things. Dating things. Book things. And, overall, word things. I've always loved the written word. A great definition gives me chills (e.g. my profile). I read voraciously and my favorite books tend to include glossaries. I'm happy when I'm editing and happier still when I'm defining. If you don't like words; prefer LOLspeak, textspeak, or some other variation of Newspeak (1984 readers will know what I mean); then this might be outside your comfort zone. 

So, why the hell would you want to read this? I don't know and I don't care. I just want to throw this into the void. Maybe you love words, too. Maybe you are a fellow nerd in the Seattle area. Maybe you're 30ish, Catholic, and dating and it's comforting to know others are in the same boat. Maybe you're a voyeur-ish pervert. No idea.

With that, till next time.