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Like millions of Indians today, I’m trying to make sense of mayhem.
To me, the terror strikes in Mumbai are a repeat performance of a dastardly act from 15 years ago, one which has given me nightmares and tested my faith in a way nothing else ever has… because I was right in the middle of the first wave of bomb blasts that rocked the city in 1993.
As a young 20-something surgeon-in-training, I acted in shock that long, long afternoon. Mechanically, I employed my well-honed skills at patching damaged bodies and providing what solace I could to innocent victims of a battle they never sought, much less understood.
Exhausted, bone weary, and terrified by the immensity of the human tragedy I had witnessed that day, I lay in bed – but could not sleep.
“WHY?”
The question demanded an answer.
It would be long in coming. Many years, in fact. And even then, they were not complete, convincing or clear.
The reason is because there isn’t “an answer”.
Like children, intuitively and instinctively, we seek simplicity in solutions to even complex problems. We want to see the confusing, chaotic and continuously changing world around us in an easy-to-understand manner.
Right and wrong.
Good and bad.
Black and white.
It would be nice, in a sense, to be able to do that. But that is not the way this rich and variegated tapestry of life breaks down.
There are layers beneath layers, dimensions within dimensions, mountains beyond mountains.
And that’s what makes the journey through it exciting, and at the same time bafflingly incomprehensible.
We think we are right. That our way is the best. Know we have all the solutions to everything that’s wrong. And believe if we were only given a chance, we could fix anything that’s broken.
Maybe we can. Except everyone else thinks the same way. And their views won’t always coincide with yours. In fact, they almost never will.
We all view the world through lenses of our choosing. And just because we’re wearing different lenses, the world will appear unique to each of us – even if it is objectively the same.
The difficult bit is realizing this truth, accepting it as fact, and then trying to see how the world might appear when viewed through another guy’s lenses. Then, accepting the reality that your view and his or hers will not be identical.
Agreeing to disagree. Accepting our differences. Adjusting our own beliefs.
I was explaining ‘empathy’ to my daughter recently.
To contrast it against sympathy, which is a remote and vague sense of shared loss or emotion, I told her how it was about actually getting into the other person’s shoes. Feeling their angst and pain, sharing their perceptions, circumstances and background (albeit in an imaginary way).
So that you can actually FEEL the way they do.
Can you empathize with a 20 year old terrorist? Feel the way he did when he stormed ashore, carrying lethal weapons, prepared to claim innocent lives – and ready to die in the process? Are you capable of placing your own perspectives and values on hold to try and imagine, for even a passing moment, what might drive such insane behavior?
Maybe not. Especially when, like the vast majority of normal people, the behavior flies in the face of everything you hold sacred and important.
Yet, unless you can place yourself in their shoes, trying hard to understand what motivates, drives and powers them to such desperate acts of destruction and horror, I submit that you should neither sit in judgment on their actions, nor presume to be able to resolve the ensuing conflict.
Because at its core lies something inherently human, universal, and extremely potent at blinding our eyes and binding our hands against the effort.
Our egoism.
Recommended reading: Eckhart Tolle’s “New Earth”
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Dr Mani,
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Thank you for sharing your 1993 experience, and how
you feel/think about the situation.
Rather than commenting let me reprint what I found
is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE in what you wrote:
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“The difficult bit is realizing this truth, accepting it as fact, and then trying to see how the world might appear when viewed through another guy’s lenses. Then, accepting the reality that your view and his or hers will not be identical.”
“Agreeing to disagree. Accepting our differences. Adjusting our own beliefs.”
“So that you can actually FEEL the way they do.
Can you empathize with a 20 year old terrorist? Feel the way he did when he stormed ashore, carrying lethal weapons, prepared to claim innocent lives – and ready to die in the process? Are you capable of placing your own perspectives and values on hold to try and imagine, for even a passing moment, what might drive such insane behavior?
Maybe not. Especially when, like the vast majority of normal people, the behavior flies in the face of everything you hold sacred and important.
Yet, unless you can place yourself in their shoes, trying hard to understand what motivates, drives and powers them to such desperate acts of destruction and horror, I submit that you should neither sit in judgment on their actions, nor presume to be able to resolve the ensuing conflict.
Because at its core lies something inherently human, universal, and extremely potent at blinding our eyes and binding our hands against the effort.
Our egoism.”
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N.B: A New Generation is rising holding OUR legacy
and you said Dr. Mani:
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“I was explaining ‘empathy’ to my daughter recently.”
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What a “sacred mission!”…
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Cordialement
TEMPUS FUGIT
FIAT LUX
Joel Bomane from Sunny Sudden France
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“A signifcant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.”
Eckhart Tolle’s “New Earth”
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When I am unable to sleep, for a variety of reasons, I always find myself at my computer. Occupying my mind with something extraneous to the thoughts within my own head responsible for keeping me from sleep usually works. This night after cleaning out my emails and checking to see if someone whom I actually know, like friends or family, have sent me a Thanksgiving message; I went to where I always go during my sleepless nights: Twitter.
The first tweet I saw was a link to this article. Not that this article is going to help me get back to sleep, but I have to comment on the beauty of the words and the sentiment.
However, I am not sure that anyone can ever really walk in another’s shoes and really understand why they do the things they do. As a person who has walked in my own shoes for 68 years, I know that what I do follows where I have been walking in my shoes for all those years. How can anyone else come in and walk in my shoes and understand me without being able to be there for the history in those shoes. Hmmm, I realize that there are times when I don’t even know why I do some of the things that I do.
That being said, I do believe that the only way we might have some understanding of other people is to try to open lines of two-way communication. The two-way part is the key. I think that the hardest part for me is your comment that “The reason is because there isn’t ‘an answer’.” If there isn’t an answer, how do we get from here to there. If there is an answer, whose answer is it? Could there be more than one answer?
Although being able to go back to sleep will not be possible now, I would like to thank you for such a thoughtful and thought provoking article.
Dr. Mani,
Outstanding guidance regarding judgment. Every event is an opportunity for a lesson and so is an opportunity to move from judgment to gratitude.
Actions opposite the right of all to live their intentions in freedom in peace offer all of us the opportunity to first be that which desire to experience. In that state we attract others who honor our experience on the physical plane. That collective consciousness can co-create a peaceful world.
That is a choice that it seems to me more are making which will change the world.
Sending energy of peace and harmony to you and all
Steve
Sure I can empathize with a 20-year-old terrorist. I could probably empathize with anyone, for that matter… any creature would be more accurate.
The young terrorists have consigned their existence to a belief… which is not a rare thing, I know I’ve done it myself (as explained to you in person), and my belief doesn’t involve killing people.
That said, the fact is that their beliefs result in harm to innocent people. While I can understand their motivation (a judgment which says “OK”), I think inflicting heinous harm on innocent people is not good (a judgment which says “Nyet”).
May I also submit that alongside putting ourselves in the terrorists’ shoes, we also put ourselves in the victims’
Best,
Lucky
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Numbed by the repetition of an inhuman incident, I am not as lucid as I usually am – and have perhaps conveyed (inadvertently) a point of view that might be perceived as being sympathetic towards the perpetrator of a misguided act.
At least, that’s what a riff on this post made me think – so to clear that up, I’ll say that for me, lessons about terrorism and its impact are written in my book of life in letters of blood.
That kind of lesson is the worst to learn. I’ve seen, first-hand, in a horrifying way that not many have, and that no one should, the devastation wreaked on dozens of innocent victims by a hostile act of anger or frustration.
I can never, ever, forgive someone who would inflict it on another fellow human being. Regardless of their reasons.
The point I was making is NOT about the superficial actions of an anti-social revolutionary, but about the root causes that drive such efforts.
When traced to their core, it distills down to a difference in opinion with another – and an inability to accept that difference, leading to an effort to force it upon them.
Yes, an aggressor should have empathy with a victim, too. It will naturally deflect the hostile action – because once you truly ‘feel’ the victim’s pain in a way that you personally might if you exchanged places, then you could not proceed to go ahead.
Unless you were mad.
@Carol Ann Wiley
You wrote:
“I do believe that the only way we might have some understanding of other people is to try to open lines of two-way communication. The two-way part is the key.”
Carol, understanding someone, empathizing, does not always need communication, let alone the 2-way kind. I’ve never seen or heard or spoken with the victims of today’s attack – but feel a deep, searing hurt that transcends any barrier. A hurt they’re no doubt experiencing.
Seeing yourself in someone’s place, in their shoes, takes imagination, willingness to expose yourself, and a certain abandonment of your own stance or position (enough to see things “as they do”)
You also ask:
“If there isn’t an answer, how do we get from here to there. If there is an answer, whose answer is it? Could there be more than one answer?”
I think your dilemma stems from wanting ownership over outcomes. “Whose answer is it?” isn’t as important as “Is there an answer?” and if yes, “What is it?”
And that ‘answer’ can only come about as a natural extension of empathizing with the other to the extent of being able to see, accept and cherish their (often contradictory) point of view.
Getting from here to there is a process. The process begins within ourselves. And cannot be imposed on others. Therein lies its biggest hurdle. When you’re ready to go, ‘they’ may not.
This is incredible sad news! The pain and suffering that this has caused is too distressing to comprehend. I feel numbed.
It is approximately 24 hours since the beginning of this disaster and I wonder how many people, like myself, went blissfully through the day, unaware!
My main goal of the day was to cook my family a new recipe and it took several hours, shopping and preparing the food, just so that we could sit down together and enjoy a new eating experience. (A small act so necessary for future memories – now bittersweet.)
Never watching television and very rarely checking the news, it is shocking to hear what people had been going through in India right now. Nothing in the world can justify such terror and brutality.
When will these ‘people’ realise that there is enough sadness in the world, without their inflicting more? Why can’t they use their intelligence to communicate their grievances? If ‘they’ can’t find a way out themselves, why don’t they ask another country to arbitrate?
Ireland is at peace now … if only …
In the midst of terror that we ae in – made by us, to bring about infliction & destructtion on the very being.
It’s time we take indidual resposibility – but, at what what cost? Who knows? Who would? How does one? Rather, do we have a choice OR no option at all.
After all, are we near to any plce,where the decisions are being taken & carried out??
If, cause & affect are so true – Who is then thriving in the chaos – Who is it, that rides the crest on the transformation mode – from ripples to waves.
Over here in this blog – crisp clear is it’s name, meaning & the message – “MONEY POWER WISDOM” – But what does it mean, any where else – If one agrees, I shall deliberately limit its boudaries to ‘Online marketing’ ONLY.
No! on second thought,I set no boundaries on the windows of thinking that will set in.
I live in Srilanka – having the experience of a second life -
after deplaning an aircraft into Colombo that was blasted in the tarmac, within the 30 minutes after arrival – way back in 1985.
I needn’t describe the aftermath.
Similarly, my wife arrived safely into Colombo in an aircraft that did not take the toll in mid-air – but on ground unfortunately, at the Madras Meenambakkm airport(fast rewind
around 20 years) again bringing in death, injury, pain, destrution —-.
Now the question is – “Does God gamble too”.
BELOW IS A RE-EXTRACT – I cannot remember from where – but lately, for sure.
“The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen….” (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)./
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Thanks for bringing me over here from the triiibes discussion Mani. I read with interest your words, as well as the words of
those responding to yours. All are enlightening.
“Evolve or die,” writes Tolle. Evolution is not static. It is infinite – always moving forward and upward. What confuses me Mani is people’s quest for the “happy ending.” IMO, the human race can always strive for better. Perhaps it’s because I’ve not walked in their shoes that I feel this way.
I asked a fellow triiibster, Michael Donk, “Do we accept, then, that the answer is there is no answer?” Michael replied, “The answer is ask more questions.”
Best my friend,
bonnieL
Dr. Mani,
The experience you had must have been horrible… I can’t imagine. Yet you come through it speaking of empathy and understanding, seeing from another’s perspective.
My favorite part was: ‘There are layers beneath layers, dimensions within dimensions, mountains beyond mountains.’ Indeed.
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