Flash of compassion
Friday, January 4th, 2008
GROUP WRITING TASK ABOUT COMPASSION
Three wise set up a task: write about compassion and we share your writings. The wise are Wade, Kenton and Albert.
BOUGHT COMPASSION
Compassion is difficult, because it revolves around physical suffering. We are increasingly detached from pain. When we happen to feel something so strong that few dozes of compassion would be in order, we can get it from hired professionals like doctors.
Funeral homes have more compassionate professionals. How often have you heard someone describing personnel to be so compassionate? Is it really compassion, if it is part of their work? Could it be empathic customer service?
FLASH OF COMPASSION
I was in hurry. Shops were about to close and I had promised to my wife to pick up a chocolate cake for the evening. It was going to be a close call, every other step was a running step. Old lady walked towards me. I checked my mobile phone, gosh, I’d better run rest of the way. I was already turning around the corner when I heard the brief yell and a thud. Old lady was lying on the street.
Without thinking straight I just started to turn my forward-going leg to the left in an attempt to make a 180 degrees turn on the spot. I walked right against that building corner, atleast I stopped, and then I was already running down the street.
Her face was covered in blood and she was moaning slightly. However she answered to my questions very rationally so I started to stop the bloodflow with my shirt (a gift from my wife) and just as I managed to apply right pressure on her cut lips, I ran out of compassion.
THE END OF COMPASSION
While I rang help, I started to have other interfering emotions, the cake, the shirt, my own painful leg, useless bystanders. It wasn’t about selfless compassion anymore, it was about fullfilling one’s duty. We sat on the street until the ambulance came. All the while she was apologizing and worrying about how long it’s going to take, maybe she should go and get a book to read in hospital.
I noticed that if we are engulfed by a strong emotion all the little ones are gone. It is a good thing that compassion reached me when it did, otherwise I might have just decided that it is somebody else’s problem and spend my evening eating chocolate cake and wonder whatever happened to that old lady.