What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
In the creative process,
when someone asks
“What are you making?”
an honest answer
is often times
“I don’t know.”
And yet,
we sometimes
make up an answer
and take offense
when others
do not understand,
while we ourselves
also
do not understand,
which means others
cannot understand.
A founder
was feeling burnt-out.
“When was your last vacation?” I asked.
He couldn’t remember.
“I can’t take one.
My employees are working.
I should be there to help them.” he added.
“What emotions do you experience
when you think of taking a vacation?” I asked.
“…Guilt.” he answered.
“Let that sink in.
That’s significant.” I remarked.
He first looked puzzled,
but soon his eyes widened
and he blurted out
“Oh!
I see!
We should all take a vacation!”
…
When we feel responsible for “others,”
it’s not unnatural
to feel concern
for their suffering.
With sufficient concern
it’s also not unnatural,
to want
to help.
This is known
as compassion.
Despite best intentions,
however,
the impact of compassion
can also make things worse for others,
and burn us out, as well.
Sometimes,
we need to tame our compassion
to put aside our need to help “others,”
and instead help our “self”
through a vulnerably creative process.
A process
by which we can realize empathy
unexpectedly,
and let emerge
a connected entity
“we”
between self and other.
A process
by which we can learn
a new choice of sight,
that synthesizes
an unpredicted form of help
that helps not other
not self,
but us.
One
of the most important concepts
in my first book
is metaphors.
Metaphors
connect two seemingly
unrelated
ideas.
In doing so,
it can help us discover
new
or unexpected insights
into something we were previously
unaware.
For example,
while I was on tour
with my book
I shared the psychological pain
and struggle
I experienced
in the artistic
creative
process..
To my surprise,
entrepreneurs
resonated more deeply with my experience
than others.
It turns out
entrepreneurs experience
similar psychological/interpersonal pain
and struggle
in the process
of launching
and running
their business.
This experience helped me
create a metaphor
between the experience of artists
and the experience of entrepreneurs,
which lead me to do
what I do
now.
But until I created
that metaphor
I used to often say
that I don’t understand entrepreneurs.
If I said I do understand,
it was just so I could feel entitled
to say something negative
about them.
So now
whenever I say
I don’t understand someone
or say I do understand them
just so I can say something negative about them,
I tell myself
that it’s time
for another
metaphor.