Picture yourself in a house on a hill…

Since my girl is light but, in fact, not Black, last Sunday we went to the Native American museum on Bowling Green to see what the haps on the craps were. After culturing ourselves, we were riding back on the train when a gentleman with a less-than-convincing toupee boarded the train. My first inclination was to make some snarky remark to Dancing Feather, but seeing as I’m trying to work on some judgment issues of late, I decided to keep the comment to myself. Riding along, I couldn’t help but wonder what series of events brought this guy to make this follicular decision. He wasn’t a bad looking guy; 40s, tall, regular building and somewhat handsome, in a ruddy sort of way. Sitting with my mostly full head of hair, I found myself hoping that I would age gracefully. It’s funny; rather than revert to the knee-jerk heckle, I attempted to try and place myself in this man’s shoes, or, more accurately, hairpiece. Somewhat surprisingly, after deciding not to heckle him, my first emotional response was to feel bad for him, to pity his decision. And while some of the feeling was probably tempered by believing I’ll age into the All-State guy, I can say confidently that my compassion was of the “damn” rather than “awww” variety.

Arriving at my stop, this question of empathy gave me cause to pause. Pushing my way through the turnstile and up the slippery station steps, I could not fully grasp why I felt bad. Chalking it up to  being a sensitive human being was not enough of an answer. And I’m not a person who can force an emotion. I mean, I laughed my ass off when Brad Pitt got tuned up by those cars in Meet Joe Black. So what was it? Fighting of the elements on Lexington Avenue, I saw very clearly the Empathy Stages of life. Why did I feel a weird sort of compassion? Because the man in question was in the right age bracket. The ways in which people feel for others is directly linked to age.

When you’re a young gun, you get Stage One empathy. People feel bad when you are physically hurt. Broke your leg? Sign the cast and try to find some joy in a painful situation. Need stitches? As long as it’s not in some place that will come back to haunt you as adolescent cruelty begins to rear its ugly head, you can rest easy with the knowledge that you will have a scar and a story. Young people, it is reasoned, are supposed to be physically hurt and that hurt needs to be allayed by the proper empathy. There’s a flip side to the coin however. For all the casts and scarring, the empathy isn’t really allocated for emotional hurts, especially from adults to kids. Adults may sort of feel bad that your prom date was a nightmare or you had a bad break-up the summer before sophomore year, but deep down, they’re really thinking, “Man, this shit ain’t even hard yet.” Young gun emotional hurt is dismissed as, well, juvenile.

But one day, all young guns get older. As this process happens, so too does the nature of empathy. At this point you’ve graduated to Stage Two empathy. People certainly still feel bad when you fall off your ladder or slip on the ice and break your leg, but the empathy is more confused. When adults hear that other healthy adults get hurt, they say, “Really? That’s terrible.” Note that the first word is “really,” as in, “Hm, usually only kids seem to have these sorts of things happen to them and I find the fact that it happened to someone who is not a kid somewhat perplexing.” Most adults aren’t foolish enough to think that they’re invincible, but they are also out of practice signing peoples’ legs. Adults are tuned for emotionally damaging situations—lost job, failed marriages, aging and mortality crises—and other adults (or would-be adults) recognize that and respond accordingly. I couldn’t sign this guy’s forehead or be regaled by an interesting tale of balding and how he decided to respond to it. So, I sat and empathized as best I could.

As Dancing Feather and I trudged home through the November rain, we decided that the people with the best compassion bracket are old people. Think about it: If you’re lucky enough to get old—and you better believe it takes luck—people feel bad for you about everything. Your emotional and physical bases are covered. Now you might say ubiquitous pity is nothing to aspire to. I disagree. The way I see it, if you get to a point in your life where people are unequivocally compelled toward compassion; if you’ve been granted enough time and experience to get to Stage Three, you’ve lived a good life. Or at least had the chance for one. Peace to Big Mama.

Penultimate Thought: Somehow, Will Smith’s movies keep dragging me back in.
Final Thought: The air is better in the clouds.