Imaginative Empathy
I recall once reading an innocuous line, from C S Lewis I believe, about the difficulty of analyzing life at the same time we attempt to live it — we are either in the mode of experiencing the moment fully, or we are dissecting the mechanics of the moment. We must choose.
I think there’s a powerful truth in there, and it’s one that we readily forget today. That is, we generally don’t pause to absorb the gestalt of a moment — the whole that is more than merely a collection of parts. We are parts collectors — we rarely take in the whole.
My wife, Elise, went for a hike near our house several summers ago, and she encountered a coyote. They were surprised by each other, and they simply stared at each other for a long time.
This was for Elise a very moving experience, a feeling of close connection with a special part of wild nature. But, when she returned to the house and relayed the story to me, I had some trouble at first to understand the power and importance of the experience. I was processing her story technically, grammatically — word by word, not holistically.
Eventually, I realized she was trying to communicate an emotional state, so I let go of the focus on particular words and simply — imagined — what she felt. Then the story took on a weight and power that no words were ever going to get across to me, and she finally felt like I was “getting it.” The key to this breakthrough was what I started referring to as Imaginative Empathy.
Often the most important things people try to communicate to us are not antiseptic technical specifications on life, not details best parsed grammatically and logically. Often, they are trying to share a feeling, a sense, a holistic experience of a moment or a eureka or a passion or an intuition. In those situations, we must choose between processing their words analytically, technically, grammatically, logically…or empathetically imagining the scene they experienced, trying to place ourselves in that scene, and feeling the impressions they had.
Listening analytically is tidy and makes us feel secure, but listening with imaginative empathy …as messy as it is… has the power to connect us more intimately to another person and to a gestalt reality that is almost always more than the sum of its parts.
This week, try listening with your imagination. Life might seem more moving.
Have a super week!
Scott
Keep reading on this thread…
Dangerous Assumption: “I know what you’re thinking.”
We’re Terribly Inattentive, Actually
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