I had some trouble sleeping last night. I woke up around three. I wasn't aware of being worried or anxious, just wide awake.
I heard from the man who had contacted me about tutoring his son, who had just arrived from Arkansas to live on Maui with his dad. The man said he would think about it. I texted him to ask his son what he wanted to do. I had the feeling this is a good kid who does his best. In that case, if it would be too much for him to take on tutoring with every else that's going on in his life, I would let it go for now. I told the dad he could always intervene later until his son turned eighteen. Actually, I think parental control extends to nineteen here in Hawaii.
I didn't make notes during the day for the updates. I can hardly remember what I was 'about to say' five minutes ago, no less remember everything I did yesterday.
We did have driveway yoga, only without Yvette. Yvette and her friend Scott are participating in a Jedi Fighter Yoga week online. That is five hours a day of yoga. Scott and Yvette participated in an in-person week on the Big Island earlier in the year. Now, because of the virus, it is being done online. Yvette recorded an hour-long yoga session for the three remaining regulars to follow. Elise had the broadcast on her phone, and Yvette had provided a speaker. It went just fine. Except, I had to set up my mat, my chair for sitting, and my walker for holding on. Scott usually does this for me.
I am suffering from prickly heat. It's driving me nuts. To that end, I drove to Target to buy Gold Bond powder to help with the excess moisture problem. I picked up two Amy's frozen dinners in the process and, of course, two Hersey's milk chocolate bars with almonds. I am trying to drive a lot now because I have to use up the gas in the tank before the end of the year.
Last year, I texted the teachers I worked with at the local elementary school, reminding them I could help students who need it. One got back to me. She said she is still struggling with online teaching, and there have only been a few students participating. This is scary. This school serves a lot of minority and immigrant children. There is a good chance parents have no idea how to help their children with technological challenges, no less their educational ones. This is going to be serious. I am willing to work with these kids for free. No response to that either. Yikes!
Judy came over as planned. She brought me an oregano/coconut oil mixture to help with my prickly heat and Elsa's allergies affecting her skin. She also brought me two stalks of celery so I could make some tuna fish salad. This is a great solution. If I have to buy a whole bunch, it goes bad before I can use it up. I prepared the tuna salad while talking to Damon later in the evening.
He talked a lot about August's thinking about the college he is going to attend. August's preference is for a good local small private college. Damon thinks this will be the best for him because he is young for his grade level. A small school will give him a chance to find his way more easily.
When Damon entered Vassar in 1990, he was a year younger than August will be when he starts. I never thought about the age problem. Damon turned eighteen in September of his freshman year. As I think of it, I was even younger. I turned eighteen in December. It never occurred to me that my age might be a problem. I think we have learned that from recent studies. Children that are on the older side for their grade level seem to have an advantage. As a result, parents often delay their child's entry to school.
I had Amy's ravioli bowl for dinner with a salad. That was disappointing. She does Mexican much better.
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Musings:
Ah, I remember now why the 'caring feelings of others' is such an issue for me. There is another downside to feeling empath/sympathy. People often confuse their feelings of distress in response to another's person's distress with caring. I challenge that.
Empathy cannot exist unless a person has a clear understanding of their own boundaries. I have to be vigilant against confusing my concern for another versus my concern for myself. Just because I feel distressed in response to another person's distress does not mean that I put their needs before mine.
My mother would tell me that no one liked me. When someone paid me a compliment, she told me they were just saying that because they didn't care about me. She was the only one who cared enough to tell me the 'truth,' which coincidentally was always negative.
If I were in a domestic partnership with someone who said the things my mother told me, it would go under a different name than parental caring. It would be called abuse, writ large.
Can I say that my mother didn't care about me? No. I don't think I can even say that my mother meant to hurt me. I can't even say that she didn't believe everything she was saying to me. However, was her behavior an example of empathy/sympathy?
I say a clear and very loud no. She was feeling distressed in response to some distress I felt and even some anticipated distress I might feel in the future. But can you say her behavior was motivated by concerns for my well-being? I say no. Any concern she might have felt for me was overwhelmed by her own anxiety. She was trying to make me better, not because of me, but because she wanted her anxiety to stop. She was prepared to do anything to stop her own feelings of anxiety without regard for what was best for me. I became an object in her life, a broken object that caused her discomfort that had to be fixed. If I was an object, she had dehumanized me.
As I write, I cannot compare her level of dehumanization with that of the people who operated the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Why not? I think it's a matter of degree. I see a horizontal line. What percent of that line is my concern for myself, my own psychological discomfort in response to someone else's, and what percentage is really devoted to the person I am empathizing/sympathizing with? Tricky question.
As far as I can tell, there is never a moment when some percentage of that line doesn't represent my concern for myself. I don't think anyone can accomplish that. I hear some say, you don't know what it means to be a mother. Your child is part of you. Any concern you have for that child reflects your feelings for yourself. They are inseparable. Allowing a child to grow up and become independent means allowing those boundaries to become clearer. It means understanding that whatever happens to your child is not happening to you.
What would be a good distribution of concern for self and concern for others? 50/50? How do we mitigate against self-centered empathy/sympathy? Empathy/sympathy for ourselves, which blinds us to the needs of others. My best guess is that's where cognitive empathy comes in.
Yes, cognitive empathy is a skill of the con artist. I guess it is limited to seeing where the mark is vulnerable to their scam, not much beyond that. Suppose empathy/sympathy is driven by compassion. In that case, that must motivate us to use our capacity for cognitive empathy to ask where the other is coming from. How are that person's needs different from ours, and what is truly the best for them? But that again requires us to tell the difference between sympathy for ourselves triggered by someone else's need versus genuine sympathy for the other person. Oy vey! Whose bright idea was it to make it so hard to be a decent human being?
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