Napkin Notes: On Approaching Empathy

Empathy is the phenomenon of dissolving emotional boundaries past the threshold of one’s own self-concern. Empathy is not, however, entirely selfless. This is because the very concepts of selflessness and selfishness lose their distinctions in empathetic relating. This is approaching the love of the mystic, which is not merely a matter of degree of empathy, but of dimension.

Ponder the sage who says: “When you first meet him, he may seem to be different from you. He is not. He may seem to be very much like you. He is not”.