Extreme Empathy Is A Disadvantage – Part 3

The world suffers in the hands of holier-than-thou people, whose aim is to save the world. Extreme empathy is a product of that misguided mindset…

In Part 2 I argued how systems that stall, making benchmarks out of their inabilities, earn an honorary seat in the Hall of Fossil Fame.

I’m going to close the argument with a few arguments one can use when arguing with people who love to argue about everything and anything, all the time – people who worship empathy so much they have turned it into an endless argument on the need to argue only from the point of view of caring about the things they care about, for the sake of caring as they understand it.

Or, as I call it, the secular branch of a let-me-show-you-the-way-ahead-in-the-name-of-love cult.

BTW – Have you noticed how harsh and wild the over-empathetic people become when you go against their code of ethics? They blow gasket after gasket.

I love them for it! They piss me off, but I have to hand it to them, it’s a good reaction. They may not be honest with themselves, pretending that peace and harmony can be upheld without confrontation, but they at least have the killer instinct that enables people to survive, and they use it when others challenge their dogmas.

Sorry, Care Bears, you’re not as bubbly as you think.

We, Humans, Move Forward

Let’s chew this over for a while. In terms of human civilization, which is just a speck of dust compared to the earth’s violent and inhuman timespan, and through the workings of which we have evolved, the brutality of nature is something we fight against, looking to neutralize it. Our aim is to replace it the nobility/divinity of humankind.

And yet, our push against nature notwithstanding, nothing gets done without Tough Love and Killer Instinct.

A look back at our measly one thousand generations of progress, from the stone age to the information age, reveals how the future belongs not to those who go around in circles, clinging on to the whirlwind of their limitations, but to those who move ahead.

And here we are. We, humans, sentient beings, making moves, examining ourselves, looking for better ways to conduct our affairs. Being shrewd and understanding, savvy and empathetic at the same time. Looking to thrive.

Moving forward requires Movement.

Raising the standard is the best help one can offer in the long run.

The trick is to know how to apply our qualities, and to what extent.

Empathy, our latest hot attribute, was conceptualized and promoted in our society as a reaction to the callous nature of our world. We tempered our anger and brutality with it.

But we overplayed its hand, doing damage to the cause, stalling our progress.

Help Yourself And The Rest Will Follow

Let’s empower ourselves again.

The point is to feel good about being good at something. Feel great about being at the top of the game. No more shame and apprehension about what makes us stand out from the crowd. No more hatred toward the frontrunners.

Frontrunners can teach us a lot of things, starting with what it’s like to spearhead the way forward. Let us revere the quality of outdoing self and others.

Let it also be done with a clear conscience. Let’s not be afraid to speak our mind and do our thing. Let history be the judge of our actions, not some thought censor with an overactive sense of propriety.

Like a wise man once said, If you want to be of service, help yourself. It’s the most responsible thing you can do. The most altruistic.

For those of you who disagree, who believe that we’d be doing even more harm to ourselves by plowing through reality with no regard for anything other than ourselves, defeating our own purpose (some say that this is exactly what we’re doing right now, thus our ‘need for more empathy’) I have two words for you:

Overpopulation and Dis-ease

By catering to the needs of a packed earth, the population of which won’t peak until it 
reaches ten billion, and by catering to the needs of a dis-eased model of economics, which relies on mindless growth and the consumption of goods by an increasingly voracious type of consumer, whom it conveniently serves – by doing all this, we, as a species, play to the unhealthy, unsustainable, self-defeating tunes of our nature. We shoot ourselves in the foot, grinding ourselves to a slow halt, all in the name of serving everyone’s ‘needs,’ without stopping to think that all we’re doing is gobbling away our future like a bad case of out-of-control termites.

Forget the baby-food morality we were raised with, for a moment, and fast on some non-sentimental thinking instead. Let’s ponder for a minute on the raw reality of things, and realize that the good thing to do, the right thing to do, is to live a life conducive to the survival of the species.

This includes the promotion of progress, the development of technology and the accumulation of knowledge, all while taking care of our surrounding environment, starting with our immediate vicinity, and from there spreading out to ever-wider circles, professional and social, national and international, even global. Always with a pragmatic mindset in mind, and with self-awareness, taking care of business rather than letting business take care of us. With a practical ideology, an ideology that stems from – and tends to – the practical realities that underscore our existence. An ideology with a lofty, noble agenda, not a set of rules that stem from a preconceived ideology tended by high-flying racketeers.

In other words, we help ourselves, and others, when not getting dragged into the fuzzy mathematics of messianism, out of which psychiatry, social services and populists (politicians and believers) make a killing.

‘It’s for your own good, friend! Take this pill. Do as the guru says. Obey the mantra of being a “good” parent, a good coworker, a good spouse, a good human being.’

And the salvation never ends.

The future depends on survival, not on ‘saving everyone.’

Help ourselves and do what is conducive to an informed life, and the rest follows.

And the world becomes a lean, mean, future-oriented machine again, buckling to no weather, disease, peril, or life-threatening challenge of any kind. Until the next saturation, material or moral, when the number one challenge is once again to remind others that overcoming a challenge is better than making those who fail at it feel good about themselves.

First we overcome, they we support the stragglers.

First we overcome! Always the number one priority. Support always comes second.

Or else we become a dis-eased society, looking to get healthy, which is totally different to being a healthy society tending to the needs of those less fortunate.

Keep at it. Look ahead, move ahead, stay ahead, help others along the way, and never, ever stall or second guess your ability to keep moving. It’s good to keep moving. 
It’s important to keep challenging ourselves.

Our lives depend on it.


From your ever-grueling Spin Doctor,

Eyes open, mind sharp.

(Or, as Confucius say, Tough love, long future. Puppy love, on the other hand, long dependence on feeding hand. Bitter truth, puppy eventually grow up and become mutt or bitch. Confucius say.)