heating chicken noodle soup

I have been struggling with many things lately.  Mostly ideas in the abstract.
What is wrong with relationships today?  Why is it hard for people to relate with each other?  Where has communication gone wrong?
Of course, I’m not the first to ask these questions and I doubt that this blog will be the last regarding them.   Nevertheless, as I ask those questions, I always seem to come back to two words:  empathy and sympathy.  Both words come from the same root—pathos—yet their approach can make such a difference.

Let’s strip the words down to it’s core.  By definition, empathy means to intellectually relate with another’s feelings, actions, or thoughts.  Sympathy, on the other hand, means to agree in feeling to another’s feelings, actions, or thoughts.

So difference?
One is to understand intellectually while one is to feel.
Does that make much of a difference?
Yes.  It does.

I feel like many people use empathy and sympathy synonymously, yet there’s a distinct line between the two.  To intellectually understand someone’s pain means nothing to the victim.  We all are capabale of analyzing the pain of a friend.  Indeed, we can even give advice to the victim, but how can they receive it?  How can they receive such advice that is served on a dry cold platter? 
In discussion, it’s one thing to be right.  But if your recepient can not receive truth, your validity and accuracy means nothing.

There’s a friend that I’ve constantly debated against.  We’ve gone through a plethora of topics.  Religion, music, love, politics, art.  However, I feel as I continue to talk, no progress is made.  All the words and advice I say one day fall apart and the next day I’m back to square one.

I used to blame him.  I used to say that he was so stubborn to agree with the facts. 
But there reveals the problem.
My search for truth was more prevalent than my search to be a friend. 
Empathy was there.  I clearly understood what his problems were.  I tried to offer him some good advice.  However, my ideas could not be served because I did not take the time and stand in his shoes and feel how he felt.  Sympathy lacked.

When one merely discusses topics through intellect, they hold the other person in contempt.  They see that their views are right and anything the opposing side has to say is wrong.  Many times, they are quite valid in seeing this way. 
However, the human heart is not a piece of machinery.  Mending a heart isn’t as simple as replacing a faulty gear with a working one.  It’s much more intricate.  We can analyze it all we want, but until we step down from our world of intellect and just sit down with our friend, hearts will never be healed.

When Mary’s brother Lazarus died, she cried to Jesus.  Jesus did not explain that in the end, we all return to dust.  He did not quote scripture to help Mary through her pain.  Instead, he sat down next to her and wept.  Our Lord wept.  The shortest verse in the Bible, yet one with much potency.

We cannot win hearts through our minds alone.  Indeed, our minds help give us ideas at how to approach things.  But our intellect can not carry all the weight.  It is through our sympathy.  It is through lowering ourselves to our friend’s level and just sitting with them in whatever state of mind they might be in.

Cold chicken noodle soup is a paradox.  So is trying to convince a friend in need with mere intellect.
Best to heat it up by showing care.

i’d rather dance with you

I was talking to a friend tonight. 
This kid is someone I admire a lot.  She holds many strong and honorable attributes.  The only thing is, many times we just don’t connect.  It isn’t that we don’t see eye-to-eye or we are on negative terms.  Rather, it is that our conversations often run a bit stagnant — rarely a constant flow.  A possibility could be because our friendship is relatively new.  I’d like to hope that that is merely the case.

At this point, many people give up on friendships.  Heck.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I would if I found this person rambunctious, for lack of better word.  But I wonder if that’s such a good idea.  To just give up on someone because you don’t click initially.

There was one person who I met in beginning martial arts.  I first met him when I was paired up with him to do front kicks.  My initial thoughts of him were… I don’t know.  He was a little weird hahah.  He reached out, though.  I remember kind of talking to him at my 10th grade ASB Ball.  He started to IM me via AIM.  I didn’t really know how to respond to this kid initially.  I barely knew him after all.  However, I’m glad Jevin didn’t give up, because we became really good friends.

Now I don’t know if my friendship with this person will be as strong as mine with Jevin’s, but my past with Jevin gives me a reason not to let go.  There is no reason to let go.  Worst case is that our conversations remain stagnant.  But unless there is no hostility, I don’t see why anyone should let go of relationships and bonds.

Jon Foreman gave insight on his view of what friendship is.

I think that’s what a relationship is… not figuring soemone out, putting them in a box and calling that a friendship.  But it’s a dance really, where you’re continually trying to figure somebody out and they’re continually to learn who you are.

It is a dance.  Friendship is a dance.   Some people just connect really well and their motions synchronize flawlessly immediately.  However, in most cases, when you start out, you and your partner are bound to move in opposite directions, step off beat, or crunch the others’ toes.  It happens, but that does not mean you just sit down after your first mistake. 

Now, I’m no great dancer — I barely meet the adequate line for ballroom dancing.  However, just by observation, I can see that dancing flows easier when the two know each other well.  They know their weak points, their tendencies for transitions, and so on. 

But that comes in time.

Maybe that’s what inhibits people from connecting today.  Time.  In this consumerist society, who has time to waste with a person that might not become a good friend at all?  Time is money, afterall, isn’t it?  Time is short.  Those with an hourly wage definitley comprehend this pressure.

But life is more than money.  Time was never money.  (Uh oh… Jon Foreman again)
To extend ourselves to another is more important than getting 8 more dollars to buy something frivolous.  To bond with a friendship can last a lifetime.  That’s something time has no touch on.  Toes might get bruised, but in time, who knows how beautiful the two’s movements might end up creating.

I danced with a friend tonight.
I stepped off beat a couple times, but I think I’m understanding her better.

mer.

there’s a lot to write.  there’s a lot of ideas.  there’s a lot of “saved drafts.”
but i would like to do them justice by giving it time.
mer.
they will be published.  rest assured :]