Malleable Empathy

Being an aunt comes with many lessons. Babies have a way of reminding us of our foundations in life, our true necessities. They also come with a lot of responsibilities and ‘growing pains.’ Right now Taft is teething which, for anyone who hasn’t been around infants, is the worst. They won’t eat, sleep, or stop crying because their little gums are so sore.

I personally can’t remember what it feels like to have teeth ripping through my gums, but I imagine it is fairly painful. For those of us taking care, it is difficult to respect the infant’s valid experience when they are wailing and inconsolable. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, “Yep Taffy, teething hurts but life doesn’t get any easier— better saddle up.” And this diminution of experience isn’t helpful for anyone.

I remember my mom once sitting on the floor with me in our living room on a particularly dramatic night. I was very depressed and on the verge of suicide. She came downstairs and tried to talk to me.

“I was a teenager once too, you know,” she consoled me, “I remember what it’s like.”

And yet I felt so alone—like she could never understand what I was going through. I am coming to recognize how feeling with people is very different than relating to them—it’s a matter of empathy. As adults, we have a tendency to diminish woes of those in different ages and stages of psychosocial development with a ‘just you wait till blank’ response, rendering the person’s current issues in this time and space trivial. Even with ourselves, how often do we discount our feelings by drowning them in labels of how we 'should' be instead of how we are.

Sometimes when I stay at the Mirai, I go down to the workshop and watch Ryan wire trees. Hunched on a stool with house music soaring in the background, Ryan has conversations with his hands. He radically bends, bruises, grafts, chops, redirects the flow—all to create a foundation for exceptional growth. The trees respond. 

             “Have you ever broken a tree?” I asked him once as he was precariously bending a deadwood limb past what looked like its tipping point.

            “Absolutely,” He smiled without pausing his copper choreography, “but I have also made some pretty fuckin awesome trees.” He took a step back as the pine’s branches settled in their new contorted harmony. “If I don’t go all out, these trees would never be worthwhile. You’d be amazed at how far they can be pushed.”

I continually am in awe of the malleability of wood—such a rigid medium in my perception. Similarly with the development of the self, our current state often feels rigid--weighed down by conditions of our past or future. 

It is easy to forget that our personal wiring happens one day at a time. We can’t judge other people’s experiences or struggles as invalid, or even our own, because every moment we are in is very real. All of our growing pains contribute to the integration of a whole self-- all are valid and worthy of respect. Empathy is a tool for radical personal and communal transformation. We all agree that it takes heartbreaks, teething, new environments, grafting roots, better fuel, vitamin D, and uncomfortable, radical contortion to make ‘fuckin awesome’ humans--so we should be a little nicer to each other and ourselves on the way.