On Empathy
16 June 2025


I am a very liberal person, I believe that everyone, criminal, citizen, immigrant, legal or not, no matter which part of the world they are born into, which gender or religion, deserves a lot of things: food, education, shelter, safety and love.

Yet, when it comes to myself, I fail totally in that.

I feel the need to “earn” my love. I feel that I can earn it practicing my creativity, making people laugh or making good work, showcasing my vast and random education and the countless useless facts I harness in the depths of my brain, heaving pleasant looks, being pleasant to be around.

Because, at my tender age of 28, my mother still tries to teach me that love is conditional.

To which I laugh at her face.

“Mother.

You’re funny.

Because.

I know that if I murdered someone, you’d still come cry by my side, and visit me in prison. You would still fight for my life, and you will still love me. Not because I’m pretty, smart, funny or successful, but for the simple fact that you are my mother.”

And - even if my mother didn’t actually love me (she wishes, the avoidant little thing), and I was looking at myself from across the room, having one of my little panic attacks as I unreasonably feel alone in the world, I would still think that I deserved to feel safe, to feel loved, no matter who loves me.

How can I feel more empathy for people suffering in parts of the world I never visited?

For prisoners waiting death row for crimes I find unimaginable?

Rather than for myself?

Can people who deeply feel empathy learn to feel empathy for themselves too?

Or is loathing ourselves a prerequisite for being empathetic?

Like my views on travel: traveling is bad for the planet, but only people who have travelled seem to care about the planet.

Sometimes life has its little paradoxes.

Sometimes love can only be born out of pain and kindness out of hate.