Thursday, April 17, 2014

Empathy 101



“What the hell makes you think you are capable of empathy!? What makes you think you can somehow step into the shoes of another? You think your life experience has been so broad and so deep that you can step into the shoes of another? How pretentious to the point of pathetic! Disgraceful! You should be ashamed of yourself.” He scowled at the head of the class, pacing back and forth jerking his head and torso about pausing only to stare into the eyes of a student for effect.

“But aren’t we here to learn how to empathize?” came out a voice with equal parts trepidation and confidence.

“Learn to empathize, learn to empathize, learn, llllleeeaaarrrnnn to empathize! Jesus Christ! What are you doing here? Did you learn to be genuine!? Did you? Answer me! Joe Pesci help me they want to learn to empathize! I think we need a break; I think you need to think about what you’ve done here. Yep you need a grown up time out. Go home, just go home and cogitate, put on Yanni or whatever it is you people listen to and think about your actions and their consequences. You better come here next class ready to empathize your asses off. You are going to be stepping into some filthy shoes, shoes that don’t fit, that make you uncomfortable, shoes too tight, too wide, shoes with no heels, shoes with blood all over them, with guilt inside, shoes that hold manipulators and abusers, the abused and manipulated… and you are going to climb inside and walk a mile…and don’t come in here next class talking about sympathizing; I’ll throw yer ass outta my class quicker than you can say DSM IV. So go home, get outta my sight.”

“Aren’t you going to give us a syllabus?”

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