I finally finished writing the essence of empathy and logical sense! Although I have many small explanations that I have not yet discussed, I will introduce them gradually in later articles. Since I achieved one of the big goals in my life, there is no need to hurry.
Today, I will wrap up this topic.
Notification of a new category
First, I created a new category for this series (Category: Empathy and logical sense). It is under the psychology category.
Although there are not so many articles, the essence of my logic is in those articles.
Please use that category if you want to refer to this topic, although this blog’s category is getting chaotic gradually.
A logic to solve mental problems
Sometimes, we want to solve our mental problems. Our unique individuality makes our lives difficult, especially if we are empathic and logical. An example is a mental complex. Although we want to live the same way as our surroundings, we cannot do it. The usual way of life exhausts us.
We don’t know what is wrong. One thing we can understand is that something is wrong with our minds. Our physical bodies are no different from others.
That makes us try various spiritual methods to modify our mindsets. However, even though it works in the short term, none of them fundamentally solve the problem. That makes us despair of our lives.
That is why we want to solve the problem.
In recent articles, I suggested a solution through our mental system.
My logic is simple. We have two senses: empathy and logical sense, and the imbalance between intense empathy and poor logical sense causes the problem.
In other words, cultivate logical strength. It calms overly strong empathy healthily.
An example of misunderstanding
Once we understand the entire mental system, the solution becomes simple. Be rational. That is it.
It unveils our misunderstandings. The way of thinking was not the problem. Our logical strength was.
For example, if I describe my situation only emotionally, I might say like this now: “Although I have spent decades solving this problem, I feel that the journey was not bad. Looking back now, even the painful past was enjoyable. We can change the interpretation of the past.”
No! Don’t believe the logic of this impression. This sentiment is logically wrong! It is the typical example of confusing logic triggered by empathy.
The mislead
It makes us misunderstand that a way of thinking can resolve our current sufferings. However, it is a temporary mental illusion that our empathy showed. It doesn’t mean we can control the emotion that way.
It is just that I feel comfortable now. My current ease is interfering with remembering the past sufferings. If I continue to focus on empathy like that and my situation gets bad, I will feel everything is painful again. It means nothing has been resolved.
An impression like this misleads us.
To calm down the intense empathy, we have to cultivate our logical sense. The broader perspective for our mental system gives us a solution.
Knowing the basics of empathy
Perhaps the unclear origin of empathy causes this problem.
Empathy is originally a brain function for mimicking. The other features, such as spirituality and worrying about the future, are superficial, trivial things.
Think of this: using the imitation function to identify our values and the boundary of the self. There is no wonder that it is ineffective.
On the other hand, logic is a function for thinking for oneself. It excludes fickle things, such as others’ values, social trends, beliefs, or common sense. We focus on facts. The facts include our feelings. We think logically based on our experiences and current emotions.
Naturally, it gives us the boundary of the self.
Improving logical sense
To improve our logical strength, judging with rationality would work better than doing simple logical work, such as chess or programming.
This is because we can make our logical sense suppress our empathy. In other words, we need to face a mental conflict between emotion and logic. Then, we solve it with reasonableness.
That seems more practical and rational in terms of logical strength.
A good opportunity to exercise this logical training is a flashback. Try suppressing these emotions with reasoning. Although you feel tough at first, it would be effective work.
Empathy vs. logical sense
We have to distinguish the wants of emotions and logic. Examples are the following:
- Empathy makes us wish that everything in the past has meaning. Logical sense tells us that we never know the meaning of everything in the past.
- Empathy makes us believe the future will be better (or worse). Logical sense makes us believe we never know what is good or bad.
- Empathy makes us want the meaning of life. Logical sense makes us indifferent to the meaning of life because we never know it.
Logical sense would tell us, “Be rational. If you cannot understand the meaning even after thinking about it, there is no meaning to struggle. All you can do is wait until you find it or do other things that improve your life.”
Empathy heats us up. Logical sense cools us down. Balancing them gives us mental stability. What we need might be cooling down our minds.
Conclusion
Anyway, that is the essence of my logic.
I have written much text in the past month. I think I will take it easy for a while.
I hope this logic is helpful for you.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
