THEY WALK AMONG US (5)

The wife of our northern correspondent Finn McEskimo has wondered aloud whether we might take another view on this other species and cites a volume entitled Emotional Intelligence by one Daniel Goleman. I have read the work and have read widely on the topic of emotional intelligence which was very popular some several years ago. I choose to take a different view but I do understand why she should want to point me in that direction. She is herself a very sensitive and empathic person and therefore has a natural aversion to such a harsh view as I propose here. Her concern is, if you like, absolutely predictable for anybody with a well developed empathy: it is almost impossible for her to imagine another "human" entirely bereft of it and it is this mistaking these things for human that deceives so many of us.

I have to re-iterate here, these are not humans who feel all of the things that we feel but some to a much lesser degree: they do not feel some of the things we feel: they are incapable of feeling those things: they are not equipped. They are thus not human in the way that we define it or understand it because any definition that we humans can come up with presupposes empathy even if it never mentions it. Intellectualise it - do not try to imagine it or feel it.

An-empaths typically display, when not under intense scrutiny, only a handful of the regular gamut of human emotions. The ones you will see most often have to do with frustration and anger. Pique at not getting what they want or things not running in their favour will often result in displays of frustration and it is this not getting their own way that is their chief motivator because, of course, if you have no empathy then you will be much more self centred than someone with empathy - other people just don't count. An-empaths will talk almost exclusively about themselves. They will open conversations without any social niceties: they will not ask how you are (they don't care). Should you ever talk about your feelings their usual response will be either a glassy blank or with "well, how do you think I feel?" thus putting themselves back in centre frame where, as far as they are concerned, they belong because, again, you do not count. Watch for smiles, not the sly self congratulating smiles but the honest, happy to be alive smile or, the happy for you to be happy smile. They will often have human that they keep close for the simple reason that this person is in some way "worse off" than they are - an-empaths have a highly developed sense of schadenfreude although they will be regularly be bemoaning how hard done by they themselves are.

(to be continued) .