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I have 2 stories to tell you, 2 stories that until today I have not linked, but now has me questioning "Do 50% of humans not have empathy?  "My therapist said that I'm a psychopath!" my colleague on arriving into the office one morning, I was the only one there. My mind was racing, aren't psychopaths serial killers, should I be scared right now? My response was "Huh? You're a serial killer?" This seemed at odds with my feeling & experience of him as a very intellligent, funny, deep guy, who I liked, very much. He said no, he tried to explain it to me this way, "Claire, how do you know the difference between good & bad?" I said it's inside of me, I just know, I feel it. He said "Yes, it's that, I don't have that, I don't know the difference between good and bad unless I have been told what is good or bad. Then I have a choice of doing the good thing or not" I was amazed "So you could do anything & not feel bad about it?" He said "Yes, but I know not to do the bad things, because I've been told not to" So his therapist said that this is a psychopath diagnosis, I think more reasonably called a non-empath, somebody who doesn't feel for other people, so they don't have an inner feeling of wrong & right.  "Just fall in love with that guy Claire" said my friend about a mutual friend that we knew. My visceral reaction was to look at her curiously as if she had just said "Just fly up to the moon & back Claire" How could I decide to fall in love with some guy like that? That's not how love works, faking in love is not something I choose to do, it's something that I feel that I have no control over. Now I can choose to love, but falling in love, that's a totally different experience, and out of my control. Oh romance would be so much easier if I could choose who to fall in love with! It had me go down this rabbit hole of learning about limerence. A scientist interviewed a lot of people, asking them about their experiences falling in love. He was surprised to learn that all of the people he interviewed fell into 2 different experiences of love. Some were limerent, meaning that they fell in love, a feeling that took over them about somebody else they didn't choose logically, these people were prone to obsessive thoughts about their person, in fact it could take over everything in their life for a while. The people who were in the other camp, they chose somebody & developed a relationship with them which turned into feelings of connection and what they called love. But they don't have that overwhelming feeling of falling in love. When asked what they think of romantic movies about falling in love, their response would be "I always thought it was just that, a movie, make believe, that people didn't really experience this, like Santa"  Dr Ramani, the world expert on Narcissism, specifically in healing from narcissistic abuse, has said anywhere from 1 in 6 showing narcissistic traits to I think 1 in 20 being diagnosable narcissists. I think this is a guess, I haven't heard of any studies having found this out. I believe that Narcissism, Psychopathy, Abusers, I think all of these may be found in the non-empath camp. What if non-empathy is the personality type & it can manifest as harmful (to others) behaviour if they weren't brought up right, or had a lack of religion, or just a lack of anybody teaching them right from wrong, or perhaps being taught by society or others around them that it's right or at least ok to harm others? What if the apparent rise of these narcissistic traits is not because there are more non-empaths than ever, but because of the fall in religion, the fall in parents having more time with their children to bring them up, capitalism rewarding narcissistic behaviour, algorithms rewarding narcissistic behaviour? What if it is being encouraged in them & this is why we are seeing the negative manifestation of non-empathy?  I often wondered what the difference was between me & my brother, how we could have grown up along side each other experiencing the same abuse, or very similar, and he chose to abuse too, whereas I would never want anybody to experience what I experienced & to feel that way. I wondered why when my ex husband had experienced his first child being turned against him, would he do the exact same thing to me "But you know how this feels" I said "why would you do the same thing to me?" I could never figure out why people often would not do the same thing that I would, The personality trait of empathy a feeling state that drives empaths, it causes us to never want to harm someone, never want others to feel bad, most definitely if we have felt something previously as the victim of it. It causes us to inherently do the right thing by others & by the world. But this same personality trait is lacking in what percentage of people? If limerence is a side effect of empathy, then we are looking at 50% of people having empathy & 50% of people not having empathy.  Single empaths are having a terrible time dating right now, because there are so many narcissists out there. Take a look at any social media post about it, read the comments & you will find men calling out all women as being narcissists, and the women calling out all the men as being narcissists, but they're pointing at the wrong trait. It's not about gender, it's about non-empathy & if we can discern non-empathy in people then not get into relationships with them, not friendships or romantic relationships then we will experience better. If we can discern empathy in people & choose these ones to have friendships & romantic relationships with (& yes, limerents this means not trusting your feelings because you can fall in love with either very easily!) then we will have much better relationships.  I do want to mention here that this isn't about good or bad people. Non-empaths exist & the universe doesn't make mistakes. They are awesome at business, clearly that they don't take others feelings into account is a gift that can have them focus on building things, creating things. Sure these things might harm people, like giant corporations that make highly addictive non-food products that destroy our health, and their buddies giant pharmaceutical companies selling the products that still keep you just sick enough to keep needing them but never healthy again, & the people they pay to sell their junk, government organisations, health-care systems, mainstream media,... Did you ever wonder why there is an organisation called the Food & Drug Administration? Why would those 2 things be linked together?  What if the non-empaths were never supposed to be making the decisions? What if they don't make good leaders? Why would someone who doesn't take into account the people be the right person to be a leader in anything? What if empaths should be the ones making the decisions, leading the way? What if the empaths decide what is right and wrong, and then steer the non-empaths to shine their awesomeness in the right direction for humanity? Wouldn't that create a much better balance for everybody thriving? Wouldn't that be evolution? As long as disregard for people & the planets wellbeing is being rewarded, profit no matter what & once you have the money you have the power & can therefore decide, we are on a terrible trajectory. We are clearly in process of devolution right now, things are getting worse. I have hope that people with empathy will recognise how valuable our traits are, & that they are essential to the collective. I have hope that we will rise up & be the decision makers. Not to make non-empaths wrong: but to work together for the benefit of everybody. I have hope. I also hope that it doesn't require even more devastation than we already have to get to this point of change.
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