I was having lunch with a wise friend recently and we were discussing my lack of publishing.  I know you are tired of hearing that I have “a lot going on,” but it’s been more true than I would care to acknowledge. The reality is that I haven’t stopped writing. I just haven’t been publishing.  Mostly, I’ve been writing in my journal.  Said wise friend encouraged me to keep drafting essays, even if I had no intention of publishing them.  Writing is therapeutic for me.  This one made it out of purgatory.

I’ve been thinking about the subject of compassion a lot these days.  Due to a combination of isolation from the pandemic, social media driving further isolation, and our frankly f’ed up political environment, I feel like “compassion” has become an old fashioned concept.  And it’s bothered me.  A lot.

I’ve noodled on why people’s “compassion” muscles have atrophied.  Or maybe never developed.  I have several theories, none of which are backed up by any scholarly research since I’m a bit too lazy to Google (or ChatGPT) the topic and read up.  I just have thoughts.  The biggest reason I think we’ve lost a societal sense of compassion is that we’ve stopped seeing people as human beings.  Some of this has been driven by our political and media environment.  The Powers That Be have become pretty good at convincing us to see anyone who looks or thinks differently from us as some inhuman “other” that must be hated and destroyed.  I try not to get too political in these essays, so let me focus on one aspect of this tendency.  To use an example, if someone who is like us happens to commit a heinous crime, our reaction is to think, “That is a bad person who needs to get help and/or get locked up.”  We do not say “all (fill in the blank) people need to be locked up or thrown out” because we know that not all people like us are bad.  That one particular person is bad.  However, there is a tendency to paint entire classes of people as “bad” if that class is different from us and someone conveniently describes them solely by that difference.  I don’t believe I need to give examples.  You are all smart people.  You know what I mean.  For this to be effective, though, you need to dehumanize the “other.” 

Compassion arises when you see someone as fully human.  And when you can empathize with them.  “Care for the stranger,” our Judeo-Christian tradition teaches, “because you were once a stranger in Egypt.”  I, for example, have made it a point throughout most of my adult life to be as “out” as I can be, since the gay community was totally dehumanized and persecuted in my youth.  Hearts and minds changed as more people “came out” and everyone could start to point to someone they liked and cared about who was gay.

Isolation, from both the pandemic and the changes in our social structure led by social media, unfortunately have built on this dehumanization theme.  Even those who don’t isolate but stay within a very homogeneous bubble risk this.  I’ll say it again:  dehumanization of people different from you leads to a lack of compassion and I have to believe that leads to unhappy souls.  We all need connection.  As I’ve written, that’s a good part of what led Trish and I to very purposefully build a strong sense of community connection.  And it’s that community and the connections we built from it that led to the story that sparked this essay.  Let’s see how much of this story makes it through the editing process since Trish is both the subject of this tale and my editor.

I have said more than once that I truly “married up.”  There are a number of reasons I think this, but one of the main ones is what a strongly compassionate person Trish is.  She is very compassionate by nature but also because she is so comfortable in her own skin.  I admit to putting up a fearful wall around people I don’t know well.  What I’m afraid of is probably a discussion for another time, but it keeps me from making the deep connections that Trish makes so easily.  I can understand how fear—fear of being hurt, of being taken advantage of, of being asked to do more than one is willing to do—can keep people from acting compassionately toward others.  But that doesn’t happen with Trish.

Trish has developed tight connections to a number of members of our new communities, but few more so than one couple at our synagogue.  Over the last several weeks, they have had to navigate the decline and, as of the morning of the day I am drafting this essay, the passing of one of the pair.  Without family nearby and with a bit of a language barrier, there was a lot for the pair to deal with—particularly navigating our healthcare system and managing through hospice, but also with the emotional toll of this journey.  We all knew they needed help.  We all knew they needed support.  Many were willing to do something.  Trish is the one who was willing to do anything.  She was literally there day and night for a couple of weeks.  It was where she wanted and needed to be.  She recoiled at people telling her she was an angel or giving her other accolades.  It truly made her uncomfortable.  She was just doing what her heart told her to do and she did it with joy.  Did it tax her and exhaust her?  Yes.  But her strong sense of compassion would have it no other way.  I don’t think I could have done what she did.  I would have been too afraid.  Fred Rogers, I believe, said something like, “In difficult times, look for the helpers.” It’s a reminder that good exists, which we all need to see in tough times like these.  Compassion isn’t dead.  I married it.

We can all resolve to face our fears head on and look for ways to be more compassionate.  Start by questioning yourself when you find yourself dehumanizing “others.”  Then allow yourself to help, even a little bit, when someone needs it.  It can be as little as looking someone in the eye and smiling, as big as holding someone’s hand when they pass away, or a million other little actions and thoughts that fall somewhere in between.  Be the helper that everyone looks for in these tough times.  See the humanity in all those around you.  Be compassionate.