The world is my twin
My second literature-inspired entry in a row. One of my favorite books is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In it there is a character named May who once had an identical twin. Whatever one was feeling, the other mirrored. When May's twin died, she began to mirror the world. She couldn't differentiate between others' suffering and her own. When she heard about or witnessed something sad, it tore her apart because she experienced it as if it were happening to her.
That's how I am, in a way. I feel things with my whole body, mind, heart, and soul. I cannot watch something passively. I observe it with all my senses, delve into it. I wonder where whatever I'm observing came from, how it came to be in this place, in this way. I wonder what lives it has touched, what it has meant to people, what it will be like in the future. I feel as though I really could walk a mile in someone else's shoes, by imagining.
I consider this both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I am privy to a deep empathy. I can understand what it's like to be someone else, and I feel that this gives me a better understanding of life. And it can be very inspiring and good, to imagine such things. But it can also crush me with despair. When I see a movie or read a book or hear a story about the holocaust, for example, I cannot just go, "Oh, yes, that's very sad," and then go about my day. I imagine what it would be like to go through the entire experience myself. I imagine all the things I would be feeling, and the pain I would go through, and I get sucked down into this monstrous pit of hopeless depression.
People tell me that it's okay, to forget about it because that won't happen to me, everything will be fine. But that's not the point. The point is that it happened to someone, somewhere, and they were a real person with hopes and dreams and people who loved them and who they loved in return. How sad it is that some people will go their whole lives so wrapped up in their own little world, never imagining what others experience. And yet, they will never be brought low, as I have been. Which is better, then? To be blissfully ignorant, or to experience life with one's entire being but suffer great sadness?
It doesn't take much to make me happy. I cry with happiness when I see a touching painting, or when I'm in a beautiful place, or when I witness some kind or generous act. When I feel blessed, I cry good tears. Sometimes I can tell that this unnerves people, but I can't close the flood gates. And anyway, I enjoy that depth of feeling. I lie on the floor between my stereo speakers and get lost in Adaggio for Strings, and I cry. So maybe it is worth it, the sadness. Because if I didn't experience the sadness so deeply, neither could I be so touched by the good.