Empathy

It doesn't matter where in the world you are, what matters is who you are with.

You could be in the most amazing places in the world, but unless you enjoy your company, non of it will make you any happier. That is especially true if you can not even enjoy the company of yourself. For if you can not enjoy your own company, then why should anybody else?

Last spring I was in a dark place.. Well physically I was in the Italian alps, one of the most beautiful places on earth, but I had just gone through a rough break-up and I blamed myself for everything. So I did not find much joy in putting myself back together. Or in anything else for that matter.

I had never before understood people who felt so bad that they wanted to hurt themselves. Perhaps that speaks of a lack of empathy on my part, but I had never had an emotion so painful that externalizing it would have been a relief.

I did not do it, but I could understand the temptation.

Despair is not an easy thing to live with.

It was at this time that I met Pathik.

When on the 20th of January I began working as an au pair for this Italian family and their then seven year old son. He was a dark haired boy, full of life and run and play, climbing trees, scraped knees and slow-mo fights with silly sound effects. We bonded over pokémon and in a flash of nostalgia I began reading him the first Harry Potter novel. I saw younger version of myself in him and felt I could attempt to become the older brother that I had always wanted but never had.

Day after day the simple joys of watching him grow slowly wore away at my melancholia.

He was a constant reminder that everything in life is transitory, that nothing - neither good, nor bad - lasts forever.

Change is life’s only constant.

One day the realization that - this little boy was more fundamental to my own well being than even my physical health - struck me from out of nowhere. I was floored.

At that moment I knew that I could not allow anything bad to ever happened to him. Because if it did, something within me would break.

Irreparably.

Perhaps I was born with some emotional deficiency, but I have never felt anything like that before.

I remember, as a kid, I once asked my mom;

“What do you do for fun?”

She was silent for a time before she answered;

“I get joy from watching you.”

It had taken me almost two decades, but I finally understood what she had meant.

The foundations of the human psyche is built upon the emotional connections we create. They help us define ourselves and brings meaning to our lives. When they change, so does the person we become, and as if our sky had realigned to a new true north, our newfound purpose becomes the polar star by which we navigate our lives.

If you are not yet the person you need to be to enjoy what you have chanses are that you will not become it until it is too late.

Because without the right company the top of the world, would just be another place to feel lonely.

This is a picture I panted for the little guy on his 8th birthday. it depicts us walking home from his school.

(his name has been changed at the request of his mother)