I’m currently half-way through All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
It’s a literary fiction about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
The chapters are short—between 2-4(ish) pages each and the author alternates between the two perspectives per chapter. This way, the reader gets to live and experience each life for him/herself.
We get to experience the horror of living during a time of invasion, occupation, and death—from both the side of the occupied and occupiers. And how each gets into the positions they do… what they’re lead to believe… and how morals and values gray during nefarious times.
…And I say “get to” with intention.
Because it’s a privilege to be able to step into the life of another and experience the brutal harshness of their experience from the warmth and comfort of our couch or bed.
And it is through this privileged opportunity that we are able to develop one of our most powerful tools for combating the nefarious forces of any time: empathy.
See sympathy is widespread and mostly useless… it’s feeling bad for others and returning to the good of life.
Empathy, however, is understanding and doing… it’s having lived the bad (actually or fictionally), imagining what you wished others would do, and becoming that person for them.
And when I look on Goodreads and see 1,989,000 ratings… I feel hope. Hope that there are empathetic people out there. People who know what it’s like and what’s worth their fight.
Because fight is what we need more of our empaths to do.