There are two words that have fundamentally kept me questioning all through this time. And they are ‘’Empathy’’ and “Conversation”. These two words are responsible for driving humanity. I’ll start with the word Empathy. Empathy as a trait has the magic to virtually connect thought structures between people as well as has the ability to allow people to sail on the same boat and yet if we go by the definition of the word Empathy i.e. Ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling or understand the experience that one has went through or allowing a person to put themselves in other person’s shoes. No two people on this planet has ever or will ever go through the same experience as each other.
Because the layers that have been added in our personalities through the years of upbringing and our actions and reactions with the natural world doesn’t allow people to even ‘’feel’’ the same way. But there is something about Empathy that will bring about this roller coaster of change in the way we function in this universe. Humans individually will always operate differently than any other species in this world and yet it is Empathy that will bind us together in times of adversity. It may be suffering emotionally through relationships, financially through losing jobs and savings and the ultimate suffering of losing your loved ones. It is Empathy that has the capability of making people realize that they aren’t alone in this fight and it is through emotional and mental collaboration that we are going to overcome it and that is what makes us the most evolved species on earth.
And this brings me to the most important virtue or attribute of humanity i.e. Conversation. It is not the technological advancement, increased life expectancy, capitalism or even democracy for that matter but it is simply the ability of humans to communicate each other in the common language they know. Conversation is so magical that it allows people to live the other person’s life for few minutes to long hours depending on the nature of the conversation. The most fascinating aspect of a conversation is something that we all will be reduced to when we leave this place and that is Stories. The two things we all crave for and will never be satisfied irrespective of how much we get it and those are — Happiness and Stories. Stories is what allows us to reflect of how people in the past were, what sort of challenges did they face, what were the times in which they were living in and how they transpired to be and stories is at least till now the only instrument that could virtually allow us to time travel. The incidents that occurred allude a learning curve through the essence and the moral interpretation we draw out of it. And it is fascinating how it alters our perception towards the world and coerces us to think twice before making a decision which otherwise we wouldn’t have had it not been for the story. And all these that I discussed about conversation is not restricted to just the one-on-one personal human interaction but the conversation and communication largely with books, movies and podcasts. Because these media I mentioned makes it possible to have access to the stories of the greatest, the mightiest, the strongest and the highly inspirational and respectable humans that have ever embraced on Earth which otherwise would be practically impossible for us to even acknowledge in the first place. There is a tiny wave of exuberance that flows in your veins when we reminisce these life experiences through our sensory organs that may leave us in awe at times and makes us appreciate their contribution to an entire generation in the absence of which we would probably not live in a way that we are living today. And we do not need to necessarily feel bad about how we ourselves live or how much we have contributed so far in our lives because we have to remember that in the end; even we are…stories.
