Wide Open

Once [Pythagoras] passed by as a puppy was being beaten, the story goes, and in pity said these words:

"Stop, don't beat him, since it is the soul of a man, a friend of mine, which I recognized when I heard it crying." (Curd 18)

During spring break I attended a funeral, and I attended another just this last week. I did not know the deceased at either of the funerals but attended to support those who lost a loved one. Still there was something surreal about the amount of emotions that people are capable of experiencing—particularly empathy.

Now maybe (or almost assuredly) Pythagoras was onto something when suggesting that we are all a part of one another. Isn't that just wide open? How does one reconcile the "take care of yourself first so you can take care of others later (hopefully)" mentality of college students when the larger goal, the larger point resides in the present?

The larger point that I refer to is connectedness. That connectedness resembles staring at something for so long that it blurs, goes out of focus.

People don't really know when anything truly begins or ends, but we're all co-owners of the "middle" of things. If the middle is the connector between the beginning and the end, and we're all in the middle of that beginning and end (if those are even distinct from one another), then we're all connected.

First he declares that the soul is immortal; then that it changes into other kinds of animals; in addition that thing that happen recur at certain intervals, and nothing is absolutely new; and that all things that come to be alive must be thought akin. (Curd 19)

So perhaps empathy is rooted in the basic understanding that one is alive in a body for the present, but that body will cease to be. To think of Pythagoras' principle in more accessible terms, Martin Niemöller's famous poem translated into English breaks down what is often forgotten—the connectedness and the responsibilities that come with it:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Or to be more specific, Pythagoras "beaten puppy" could be the communists, the social democrats, the trade unionists, the Jews, or any number of things that are a part of us. This appears to be the root of empathy—the ability to recognize oneself in other people, animals, and living things.