"i'm finishing this piece of my bargain ... the shape of which, i have no idea... i'm saying this about the very artifact of who i have been."
empathy –– which is to say the qualitative response to the external ––is not so much about my inability to "feel" how you are "feeling" this tuesday afternoon. really, it is my own capacity to feel––and more so to inhabit (or to live-by [livethroughby])––the very things you did not know you wanted me to feel. empathy is an alternative consciousness that converts horizontal sentimentalities into vertical orientations of spiritual and para-natural powers. horizontal touches and transient moments of afterthought are all very real and deliberate lapses of the empathic. "i feel this means something," or "i think i've seen you before," or "something you said really spoke to me," are all iterations of your empathic connection to the world. cultivate this gift, live through these feelings, and bargain with the off chance that this feeling is meant to create or nourish something living within each of us.
the man that sold me soap from Jordan
the investigators that question your integrity
the preacher that sends you on a blind journey
the mother that didn’t believe your lie
the crazy lady on the bus with your story to te||