My takes on life; why?

Fragility

One day you may have a clear nose, no itch in your throat, no illness in your body and a love for many things in your life. In the snap of your fingers however, that can all change; your health can vanish instantly, replaced by a plague-like illness that sickens you to your core, and is unable to be cleared. You may have necrotising organs and tissues in your body, and have them die as you carry on with your life, unknowing to the fact that you are in a crippled state, and deteriorating. You may fall into a depression, one that swallows every hope for anything happy, pleasing and satiating in your life, one that enters your mind at moments of its choosing, and stripping you to the bone of your emotions, leaving you a barren, hollow catalyst of life, barely fitting the description of living.

The fragility of life is one I understand all too intimiately. While I can't say I've been an empty or hollow entity that lacks emotion, nor have I felt the blunt kiss of death on the varying tissues of my body, I do understand how quickly life can be snatched from the grasp of those enjoying it, for one particular reason:

In 2020, my mother ordered cats, only a month after the lockdown began, with the intent to breed them and be "the rural breeder"; stop people needing to drive 6+ hours for a cat. While the initial phase of breeding was slow and demoralising in many ways, it did end up being successful, and she now breeds cats on the side of being a nurse (the second main way the fragility of life can be displayed to someone; through stories). In the 6 years now that she has been breeding cats, there have been many families come to our house, pay for and receive their cats, then leave, happy with the exchange and euphoric to welcome an addition to their families. Some stories, however, are not quite as happy.

As in any species: dogs, horses, endangered species of varying sorts, and even humanity, life is fragile, particularly at birth. Cat litters typically have between 3-7, but I've heard (and seen) of litters between 1 and 12. This range helps the feline population thrive, as medicine for cats is limited and severely elementary compared to medicine for humans. As someone who has watched my a cat breeder for 6 years, I've seen numerous kittens die within the first days of their lives, and probably about as many in the following few weeks.

Hence, I intimately understand the fragility of life. If not through my experiences, I understand through watching the process of bringing a baby kitten up from birth, into a loving and affectionate being, capable of loving a family as much as any person could. The trade offer, of course, being that I also have to endure the not so pleasing, potentially gut wrenching and sad stories of kittens who get the short end of the stick, and get lost before they can see their new families.

Empathy

Have you ever watched the news and heard a story about a small child who was taken from her family and beaten to death on the side of the road? Perhaps it caused you intense agony; you ail for the family, whose loss is immense, and you only pray you could help them in some way. Perhaps you heard a story on the radio about a car crash that claimed numerous lives, and your heart goes out to the families who must now willow in their loss; one for which they are not responsible. How would you feel if someone broke into your home, stole your most valuable things and got away, scott free?

Some people are born with an inherent ability to understand other's more; they resonate with a story more than other people. Nothing's wrong with not being able to understand someone's feelings; feelings are complicated at the best of times, and trying to wrench yourself into a position where you think you would feel similar to the person to whom you are trying to resonate is difficult. It seems to me that depending on where you look, there's either far too little empathy, or perhaps far too much.

The lack of empathy is obviously quite extensive: people kidnapping and harming children, people robbing businesses and firms for no or little reason, people harming others for no reason, people lying for no reason, people causing accidents (intentionally), etc. It seems like (when you look on the news, or read an article) that something the world could do with a lot more of, is empathy; the ability to understand how other people are or would be feeling after a certain event or action. I think it would certainly not do any harm for people like politicians, police officers, and other people in cleary significant, essential work to be trained very well at empathising with people, be it for the benefit of doing a better job, or being able to understand how their decisions directly impact the people below them ("common joes" in other words).

On the flip side, I've heard news articles that invoke substantial remorse; families losing someone they love, accidents claiming lives and more. But, it does seem like some people take these stories a little bit too much to heart. For example, do you remember the stores you've heard in the past about families losing someone? Perhaps a terrorist attack or two? These are obviously dark, tragic stories, and lessons are here to be learned, plentifully so, but people take events that aren't connected to them in any way, and act as though they have been directly violated. I've heard numerous family members do exactly this with kidnappings, murders and terrorist attacks. Again, these are obviously deplorable things to have happen, but the human brain (or at least my one) is not built for anywhere near as much disaster as that which is happening on Earth at the moment.

So as controversial as it may be, I think that sure, some parts of the world could do with more empathy, but I also think that too much empathy is just as dangerous to people's health and well-being.

Justification

So far on this page I've discussed some pretty interesting topics, with very interesting approaches to both of them. Hell, the start of this page starts off by juxtaposing both ends of health; optimal health with no issues, and the verge of death. Why did I do this? Well, in case it wasn't obvious by now, I like thinking. I enjoy thinking about certain things, and sometimes it can even be therapeutic. Sometimes I think about little things, sometimes I think about things I shouldn't, sometimes I think about big things, like what I've discussed written on this page.

Although my approaches to the previous 2 topics are certainly unique, and many people might argue inappropriate, maybe even downright wrong, I think there's one step left to take before you judge me or claim my approach to be poor: why?

Justification is a significant part of life; justifying why you did or did not do something can not only help people empathise with your choice, but it can help to strengthen existing understandings, to reduce their fragility.

I chose very heavy topics to write about because, in my eyes, I think people should think about them. I think people should consider life's fragility, and whether that makes it better, something to be treasured, or worse, something to turn aside because it can all end at once. I think people should contemplate empathy, because while too little empathy is bad for everyone, to much empathy is bad for anyone. And lastly, I chose justification, because too many people in my experience seem to jump the gun, say a choice was bad before they consider why someone might have done something.

Some people might dislike my choices for discussion this evening, and that's fine with me, I asked you some questions, gave you my take and let you have the room to have your own opinions. But in the end, I look back at what I've written, and know there's a reason behind what I've said, there's a method to the madness, there's a why behind everything.