Hospitals, Empathy, Hypocrisy and Other Thoughts...
I was at the hospital yesterday for a medical check-up. Now, if you have ever come across any of my writing at least once, you’d notice that outside depression, I have no skill. It is in that bubble, any bubble that smells of depression that I pull out lines I can never pullout should I be in any state of mind that spells happiness.
So there I was in the waiting open space and before long, the swathes of sick bodies and the sorrows they wore called forth my muse to get to work using my mobile phone e-diary.
“It gets you. The cold sad floors, made more apparent by the sad stories of pain and regret that seats on the faces of they who you don’t even know from Adam…” I began.
“Leo, Leo, who’s Leo?” a nurse on white uniform called.
I followed into the consulting room and met a doctor balded with age yet way stronger than his peers thanks to his wiry physique.
Done with answering the old man, I made a swipe to resume my typing then he came in. An age mate or even my junior, with the sharp wits of a salesman and the blazing thought-process of the learned, pitching his company’s latest drug to the attending.
Then, I couldn’t. I couldn’t continue pulling out the sad melodious lines no more. It was gone like the wind. Even my muse felt it as I could feel him no more. Like a drawback, dude receded into the deepest part of my brain where I needed to become sad once more before he could come forth. It was always the key to unlocking it anyway.
Hanging, new truths began to dawn on me. Am I empathetic as I claim to be? Am I even empathetic at all? Before laying my eyes on this young man that reminded me of my failures of the past and pains of the present, I was bejesusing the fuck out of the word: “empathy.” I felt A’s pain, B’s pain, her pain, his pain, all their pains. Instead of feeling sorry for the people I was “better” than, I became jealous of people that were “better” than me. Instead of observing every patient, one by one sitting in that room and using them as a case study and wondering just why God will allow this kind of suffering they never deserved, I started having flash backs at the zillions of people I grew up worshipping me who now happen to be better placed.
Instead of feeling empathy for those below, I became mad at those above. I went from asking the universe why she was treating the sickly unfairly to why she was treating me unfairly. Sadly confirming that I am still that selfish being who not even some momentary plunge into the pains of others absolves the prick out of his soul.
Despite tasting the light, darkness seems to always find me.
Has anybody else ever felt this way? Or am I the only son of a bitch out there? Doubtful.
We feel self-righteous and what not whenever we carry out actions the moral conscience of the society we grew up in deems “good” but what if the very act of doing good is selfishness? Can we really be sure about anything in this life?
What’s the difference between a psychopath who “enjoys” locking people up in basements and me who “enjoys” shedding silent tears for strangers on the street? We both enjoy it. We both draw inspiration from it. We are both like painters with our respective muses. A good example for the so called “evil man” I am trying to paint here is the fictional character Niklaus Mikaelson who is as wonderful as they come when it comes to being a family man except when he is busy tearing people’s heart out and using their blood to wash down his dinner.
A flip of fortune did after all switch me from hero to villain in a matter of seconds. As painful as it was, it made me realize I am not even the good person I sometimes suspect I am. Maybe @phoneinf was right. I am a victim of a mind trap. Or not. I don’t know.
ImageSources: Pixabay and Giphy
God Bless You!