Empathy. Some people just have a brain for math and understand numbers in ways other people just never will. Others, like myself, have brains that are really good at understanding others, and we perceive and understand others with a facility some other people just can’t. It sounds pompous to say, because all human beings are at least somewhat skilled in this area, due to our species being highly social, but it’s still a cognitive speciality and some of us are innately better at it than others.
It can be frustrating too, because when other people don’t understand what you see in someone else, they question your decisions about them, and it can be hard to see why other people don’t see what you find obvious sometimes. It’s a bit of an extreme example, but I know people who can’t see that Donald Trump is a highly transparent narcissist. Even ones who didn’t vote for him and hate him for all the obvious reasons can’t see the personality disorder in him, and I find it so glaringly obvious that I sometimes just can’t fathom how anyone could miss it. But, if I really think about it, and I imagine what it might be like for a person who doesn’t have a natural talent for empathy, I can see how they just might not connect the dots and just see a bombastic, arrogant asshole, rather than the much more complex pattern of malignant narcissism that underlies that comparatively superficial persona.
Empathy. Some people just have a brain for math and understand numbers in ways other people just never will. Others, like myself, have brains that are really good at understanding others, and we perceive and understand others with a facility some other people just can’t. It sounds pompous to say, because all human beings are at least somewhat skilled in this area, due to our species being highly social, but it’s still a cognitive speciality and some of us are innately better at it than others.
It can be frustrating too, because when other people don’t understand what you see in someone else, they question your decisions about them, and it can be hard to see why other people don’t see what you find obvious sometimes. It’s a bit of an extreme example, but I know people who can’t see that Donald Trump is a highly transparent narcissist. Even ones who didn’t vote for him and hate him for all the obvious reasons can’t see the personality disorder in him, and I find it so glaringly obvious that I sometimes just can’t fathom how anyone could miss it. But, if I really think about it, and I imagine what it might be like for a person who doesn’t have a natural talent for empathy, I can see how they just might not connect the dots and just see a bombastic, arrogant asshole, rather than the much more complex pattern of malignant narcissism that underlies that comparatively superficial persona.