{"id":1462,"date":"2015-03-13T15:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T19:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/?p=1462"},"modified":"2015-03-20T18:04:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T22:04:43","slug":"in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaqueline the Enthusiast"},"content":{"rendered":"
From Jaqueline the Enthusiast<\/strong><\/em>, an unpublished novel by Martin Riker.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe matters you have just now spoken to, young man, the extraordinary story you have told, the auspicious departure you are planning, the specious-sounding organization you are intending to join, these all cause me to consider the nature of the human conscience<\/em>. To have a conscience means to realize one\u2019s own shortcomings, but not necessarily to act upon this knowledge. It means, more often than not, not <\/em>to act. And even though the having of a conscience is rooted in a system of morality, the having itself is not a moral state. Do you agree?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess so,\u201d said Frank.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am certain you do! Now, bearing the aforementioned in mind, the real question is whether failure <\/em>to either act or not act upon one\u2019s conscience constitutes an immoral <\/em>state. If so, are we then claiming that the owner of a conscience can do no better in life than to achieve, through constant unblemished perseverance, through endless intentional instances of action or non-action, the bare minimum that is morally expected of that man, by the man himself? A person could never expect to live a \u2018good\u2019 life under such circumstances, but could only avoid, to the best of his ability, a \u2018bad\u2019 one. And a life without such constant vigilance, a life of mute contemplation or willful repose, is a moral crime for which a person is, in fact, guilty<\/em>. Now what do you think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Frank answered honestly. \u201cI think,\u201d he thought about it, \u201cthat you should try to be a good person, of course . . . And actually I think most people think of themselves as good . . . or as trying to be . . . But if you ask me what it means <\/em>to be a good person . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree!\u201d cried Brian, when Frank had taken too long. \u201cFor myself, I have often thought of the human conscience as essentially a musical<\/em>construction, a notion that you, being a musician, will perhaps take to heart. Musical because groundless, you see, the way musical scales only make sense, only make music, when one grounds them in a particular key. Take, as example, the series of intervals commonly referred to as the \u2018major scale,\u2019 but which you and I know to be the mode Ionian<\/em>: it is a series of intervals and nothing else, a structure or system holding the potential for a particular harmonic energy but offering no actual sound <\/em>until one chooses an instrument and a note to start from. In short, the Ionian mode is an idea awaiting an action, or rather, an actionless system of restraints<\/em>. And this is also a person\u2019s conscience, which as a system of restraints is utterly inoperative until one picks a moral starting point, a tonic <\/em>if you will, or more often has one picked for one, or, more often still, simply accepts the one one was born to without considering other options or even recognizing that \u2018option\u2019 is an option at all. You agree?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting way to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes it is! Now, much like the intervals that make up a musical mode, a human conscience tends always to proceed by the same pattern and in the same fashion, that of its established quality, but with results varying upon which moral tonic it starts from<\/em>, and which pattern it proceeds through<\/em>, the spectrum of moral and temperamental possibilities varying considerably, from highly conventional to utterly non-. One might adopt a \u2018Western\u2019 conscience, as the vast majority readily do, comfortably settling themselves within a standard seven tones\u2014or, for the audacious, expanding to twelve. Those of a more Eastern disposition might squeeze into a five-tone conscience, embrace the clarifying hug of pentatonics, or, at the Southern extreme, diffuse their souls into microtones, where all the hippies went wrong. There is even a thing called \u2018just\u2019 intonation, built upon intervals that are theoretically \u2018natural\u2019 but that in practice fall miserably short. Wishes not being horses, the seeking soul moves on. The point, however, is that there are important choices to be made, and great discernment to be demonstrated, not simply because various consciences \u2018play\u2019 varyingly, but because the song of one\u2019s self can only be sung in the scale of one\u2019s self, and will sound wretchedly \u2018off\u2019 in any other . . . \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I don\u2019t get,\u201d Frank offered unprompted, seemingly implying that he\u2019d understood everything else Brian had said so far, \u201cis how the conscience being like a musical scale or mode relates back to what you were saying earlier, about how a person who acts or doesn\u2019t act upon his conscience is or isn\u2019t able to gauge whether he\u2019s . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it does not!\u201d redounded Brian. \u201cPerhaps it does not relate back, as you say, but only relates forward<\/em>\u2014which, you will surely agree, is a far more interesting direction for a conversation to go. One moves forward in faith that as long as the ideas one speaks are truly and honestly intended, they will accrue, however haphazardly, into something honest and true. Consider, for example, James Joyce . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writer?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . a man of noted musical leanings. Of the countless quotables in his most highly annotated opus, one line appears more often than all others, more than twice, more than thrice\u2014and yet it was not his, not Joyce\u2019s, this line. He stole it from Robert Burns. You know the work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScottish poet. There is a statue of him in this very park. If we had walked a different way, we would have passed it . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

He paused on \u201cpassed it\u201d with a meditative sigh, as if imagining in that moment an entire alternative history that might have been lived but wasn\u2019t, and how different everything might have been had they only walked that other way, and how much better.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighteenth century and the particular line in question was addressed to a louse<\/em>, not a louse-ridden man or woman, mind you, but an actual verminous grub. The entire poem is to the louse, in fact, yet ends, following poetic custom of the time, with a punchy metaphysical couplet: \u2018O wad some Power the giftiegie us,\u2019 then: \u2018to see oursels as ithers see us!\u2019 To see ourselves as others see us! No \u2018Bronze by gold heard the hoofironssteelyringing,\u2019 but it pulls its weight, it pulls its weight! Passed from a louse to a Scottish poet, from a Scottish poet to Mr. James Joyce, from Mr. Joyce to all of posterity, and here we are enjoying it together, one of literature\u2019s most excellent instances of a singular soul recognizing, in the textually rendered experience of another, a shared plight! You see where we are headed? Empathy!\u201d He threw up his hands, causing a light grassy shower to drift down upon him. \u201cFor while it is true that each must strive to establish his specific harmonics of self, yet this quest is but the first of several a unique <\/em>soul must undertake, for unless he venture forth and strive still further, a great and abiding loneliness awaits . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

For a moment, Brian broke his gaze upon Frank to stare off across the field, that bustling sunny scene, pondering the great abiding loneliness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is empathy, after all?\u201d Brian was back. \u201cTo see in another some aspect of ourselves. It is the inverse of self-knowledge, in this sense, and yet, in another, not at all. For the desire to see ourselves as others see us is nothing other than the desire to see ourselves clearly<\/em>, as we truly are, without which essential knowledge our personal perspectives on our own persons is faulty, erring, and incomplete. And if we do not manage to see ourselves <\/em>rightly and completely\u2014that is, if we only manage to see ourselves in the manner that we ourselves see ourselves\u2014but nonetheless proceed\u2014 with what arrogance!\u2014to see ourselves in others<\/em>, then what do you suppose we would be seeing? That is, what sort of empathy am I offering my brother if, in thrusting the image of myself upon him, the image I thrust is of my egocentric, self-illusioned self, my ignorant, overly idealized self, rather than myself as others see me? A left-handed empathy to say the least! Nor is this problem lessened for the distinctly harmonized individual, whose very uniqueness makes the likelihood of a true empathetic connection terrifyingly slim. Indeed, such individuals, whom for sake of expediency I shall simply refer to as \u2018we\u2019\u2014we individuals of distinct conscience must first learn to see ourselves in ourselves <\/em>before we can ever hope to see ourselves in others<\/em>. And the others must at the same time <\/em>succeed in seeing themselves in themselves, in order to see themselves in us. For only under such specialized circumstances will we be able to empathize truly with someone who is in fact being himself, rather than empathizing inaccurately <\/em>with someone who is himself, or accurately <\/em>with someone who is not <\/em>himself, who at the same time may be trying to empathize accurately or inaccurately with us<\/em>, as we are being or not being ourselves!\u201d He breathed. \u201cThus the horrible truth: that beyond the harrowing group-mind that currently passes for human understanding, true empathy is practically impossible in this world. Yet we go through it, we try to . . . For no life should be empty of empathy. Every soul deserves to empathize and to be empathized with in turn.\u201d And landed here, a soft landing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To have a conscience means to realize one\u2019s own shortcomings, but not necessarily to act upon this knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[116],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTraveltainted | Jaqueline the Enthusiast - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traveltainted | Jaqueline the Enthusiast - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To have a conscience means to realize one\u2019s own shortcomings, but not necessarily to act upon this knowledge.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T19:02:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-20T22:04:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Riker.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"601\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ruth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/in-central-park-brian-explains-empathy-to-frank\/\",\"name\":\"Traveltainted | Jaqueline the Enthusiast - 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