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epitome of incomprehensibility
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Partly because her_name_rhymes_with_euphoria.
Partly because, with creativity (which everyone probably has) plus the tangled cords of life, you'll probably end up feeling bad for things that happen to people you aren't "supposed" to worry about. As if people are separated into little boxes of kin or country or whatever.
My question isn't, Why do I identify with people I don't actually know? or Why do I let things affect me? My question is more like, Why is "identification" the explanation for empathy? Why, because I feel bad for somebody, is it assumed that I find myself "like" them in some way?
Maybe identification is needed, because I'm selfish. Or cold. I know I'm cold. In fact, I'm probably colder than you. My body temperature is normally around 36C, 97F (a doctor had to assure my mom that some people are naturally colder than others.) And, of course, literalists are always cold.
Coincidentally or not, last Sunday of surreal_sundays was one of the first cold nights of the fall. Why did I identify with the woman asking for money? She was black, I was white, she said she was new to Quebec, I wasn't... On the other hand, you could also say we were about the same age, she had a similar way of speaking (age and accent - I find myself drawn to boxes in spite of myself; maybe the boxes are magnets and they shouldn't be.) Maybe it was not the differences and similarities but the situation that made the difference - c.f. Sara Ahmed's Strange Encounters if you want to Critical-Theory-in-Real-Life that. It was cold.
I think I also should refer to a park. People die and I write about parks, but it's okay because I'll die too. Most likely not in a park, but it did seem a bit more likely I would die in a park on December 27 last year. (More later, because the Internet is in demand and we only have one cable.)
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