Empathic Pains

A conversation:
J: What do you mean?
S: I mean it bothers me when people smoke.
J: The second-hand smoke?
S: Well, yes - of course that - but it's much more than that. It's the pain it causes me.
J: The pain of inhaling their smoke?
S: No, like I said, it's much more than that. When I look at a young man puffing on a cigarrette, I see his lungs being coated with tar and all the dangers of cancer, as well as the financial damage it does him.
J: Well yeah but it's his choice isn't it? Can't he make that decision for himself?
S: Of course he makes decisions, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt me? When he smokes, I feel his pain.
J: Well that's not his problem.
S: I'm not trying to blame him, I'm just sharing why it hurts. But you bring up a good question: is it his fault? Of course it's an addiction. But that addiction hasn't conquered him has it? He is still a person with the ability to choose. And shouldn't he choose not to do harm? Shouldn't we refrain from doing harm to others?
J: Well that's not harm, that's just your empathy. You can blame him for second hand smoke but not your gut reactions to his smoking. You're not really feeling his pain; you're just sympathizing with his decision to hurt himself.
S: So he is responsible for physical pain to others but not emotional pain?
J: No emotional pain too. Child abuse can include emotional abuse. And I do believe that psychological harm is still harm. But where do we set the line? If you felt pain when I did something harmless, like chew gum, would that mean I was doing wrong?
S: Of course not, because gum chewing does no real damage, as least as far as I know, and so anyone who felt pain from that would be emotionally immature. But smoking does do damage.
J: Yet, it only does you damage because you let it affect you.
S: And you seem to think that is my problem? Have you never felt pain when you see someone suffering.
J: Of course, I'm not an ogre just because I don't care if other people smoke. But that suffering was never at their own hands. They had not chosen to do what they do.
S: It's not a matter of choice. Whether or not I feel the pain does not depend on if they have choice or not. I feel the pain because I connect with them. I have learned how to love another person. When I see another I pray for them. I ask for the willingness to do good to them. And you know what it does? It creates a place for them in my soul. Everyone does it, that is why we grieve when we lose someone we love. But few do it intentionally, and even less with strangers. If we allow ourselves to connect with other people, we feel their pains... but we also feel their joys. Do you mean to say that loving others is emotionally immature?
J: No, it just sounds silly to care about someone you don't even know. How could we possibly love everyone?
S: We can't and perhaps I'm just sensitive to this one area. But I don't apologize for that. I'm grateful that I've learned to love others more than I could ever dream of ten years ago....

If you think I'm commenting on smoking, you'd be wrong. It's a dialogue placed within the issue of smoking but to me it's about much more than that. What does love look like? What does it mean to have your heart hurt? What would be the implications for public policy if we treated the healthy heart as something that could be wounded? What about issues like immigration? war? abortion? health care? These are issues that wound the caring heart.

Abraham Lincoln once wrote to his old friend and roommate about how his friend's ownership of slaves was impacting him, "It is hardly fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union." Is that the solution, to deaden our hearts, when we feel the pain of injustice and wrong? Thank God this man finally decided it was time to stop "crucifying" his hatred of slavery and allow it to move him to action.