You must first be clear about what you want. This may sound like an obvious statement but the vast majority of people are totally unaware of what it is they really want. Their desires are not concrete. They know what they don't want but they don't know what they do want.
Ask someone if they could have anything they wanted in life and 98 out of 100 people will begin to describe everything in their life that they don't like. They will tell you what they don't want but have very little idea of what they really do want. Even those who have some idea of what they want do not have any specifics. They want more money, better relationships, a more fulfilling job etc., but they cannot describe exactly what this means to them. You need to be specific.
So the first step in getting what you want is knowing what you want!
Next you need to know why you want it. What way will having this thing, situation or type of person make you feel? Our feelings play the biggest role in goal-achievement. They are the essence of all desires. Every wish, desire or goal starts with a feeling. Think about this for awhile. If you can identify the feeling behind your desire and replicate the way you will feel if you were to have that desire you will surely receive it!
Next write down your goal. This helps you get even clearer. Describe your life as though you already have your desire right now. Ensure you include the feelings that will be evoked once you have your goal.
For example – "I feel immensely grateful for my brand new Mercedes SL Class sports car. Every morning I feel exhilarated as I open the majestic black metallic door and climb into the black nappa leather-bound driver's seat. It feels as comfortable as an armchair. The engine purrs into life when I start the ignition and I smile approvingly as I reach down to shift the gear stick set in its burl walnut wood fitting. When I speak softly the voice recognition system immediately jolts the CD player into life and my favourite tune fills the surrounding area. The drive along the street is so smooth and the engine is so quiet I feel like I could be floating on a cloud. Gratitude and joy begin to fill me as I realize that I created this."
Next visualize your goal while you repeat your written statement. See yourself performing the tasks that you have written. Feel the feelings associated with it. Do this every morning after waking and every night just before retiring.
Ensure that you stay positive and focused throughout the day. Never allow frustration to creep in or impatience. When you become impatient you are affirming that you do not have your goal. Stay focused on the feelings that you know you will experience when you reach your objective.
Next, be open to new opportunities. Allow the universe to open new channels for you. There are an infinite number of ways you can receive your desire. If you can develop a plan for attaining your desire that is even better. If not, be open for new ideas that will come to you and formulate them into a plan when you get them.
The final step is simple – take some action. Do something no matter how small that will get you closer to your goal. Arrange a test-drive, go look at houses in the neighbourhood you want, ring friends and invite them out to dinner. Do something!
When we take a small step forward the universe will take 10 steps to meet us. Follow these simple steps and your goal attainment is assured.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Speaking Well In Public Is By No Means Accidental
You might possibly know how jokes can complement your speech. But jokes can also cause your speech to be disastrous. Jokes are both a boon and bane to a speech.
If you are very much in comfort with it, use humor. Just check it first if it fits, serving as a breaker between sections or emphasizing a certain point. A funny and great line, or a comment that is irreverent can help liven up the presentation that you have and will help people to remember the things you have said. Of course any joke must be related to the topic that you have in some way. If you are not sure about something, you could also use a humorous photo or cartoon (with the permission of the photographer or illustrator, of course) in your slides.
Aside from making jokes or humor in your speech, you could improve your public speaking with these other tips.
- You should be able to grab your listeners' attention even right at the start. That is why it is important that you start correct – confident posture, eloquent speaking style, controlled voice tonality and impact, and a nice, well-thought speech from you.
- The information in your message should be organized clearly and logically, making it easy for your listeners to follow what you are trying to say. Keep things easy and simple. Divide the information into smaller blocks and work from there. Highlight the points that you want your audience to remember.
- Your most crucial point should be the conclusion, bringing the speech to a close. The conclusion sets the tone of the speech, and lets the listeners think about and ponder on the things you have just said. Literary devices, such as quotes, stories, rhetorical questions, or surprising facts, can be used for concluding a speech, although of course, these devices should relate well to the topic of your speech.
- Deliver the conclusion that you have clearly and slowly. Keep eye contact with your listeners as you speak. Smile at them, thanking them for the time that they have given you.
- You should remember all these tips and in due time, you would be surprised to see how these techniques have helped you in your future speaking presentations. Your listeners will eventually understand the information you have given them and respect you for your ability in delivering that information.
If you are very much in comfort with it, use humor. Just check it first if it fits, serving as a breaker between sections or emphasizing a certain point. A funny and great line, or a comment that is irreverent can help liven up the presentation that you have and will help people to remember the things you have said. Of course any joke must be related to the topic that you have in some way. If you are not sure about something, you could also use a humorous photo or cartoon (with the permission of the photographer or illustrator, of course) in your slides.
Aside from making jokes or humor in your speech, you could improve your public speaking with these other tips.
- You should be able to grab your listeners' attention even right at the start. That is why it is important that you start correct – confident posture, eloquent speaking style, controlled voice tonality and impact, and a nice, well-thought speech from you.
- The information in your message should be organized clearly and logically, making it easy for your listeners to follow what you are trying to say. Keep things easy and simple. Divide the information into smaller blocks and work from there. Highlight the points that you want your audience to remember.
- Your most crucial point should be the conclusion, bringing the speech to a close. The conclusion sets the tone of the speech, and lets the listeners think about and ponder on the things you have just said. Literary devices, such as quotes, stories, rhetorical questions, or surprising facts, can be used for concluding a speech, although of course, these devices should relate well to the topic of your speech.
- Deliver the conclusion that you have clearly and slowly. Keep eye contact with your listeners as you speak. Smile at them, thanking them for the time that they have given you.
- You should remember all these tips and in due time, you would be surprised to see how these techniques have helped you in your future speaking presentations. Your listeners will eventually understand the information you have given them and respect you for your ability in delivering that information.
How to Choose Bridge shoes
Trying to find the perfect shoes for your Special Day can only be described as troublesome. Will it be heels or flats? Will you show your toes or will you opt for a sandal look? Wading through all the colors, styles and designs may cause the soon to be bride to shed a tear or two.
Don't despair, finding a wedding shoe doesn't have to be such a daunting proposition if you just follow a few simple details.
Let's first look at your gown and it's color and type of fabric. A rule of thumb, is to keep your shoes and gown as coordinated as closely as possible. Match the material of your wedding dress with the fabric of your shoes.
Heels would be the right choice if your going with a short or knee length dress to make your legs look slimmer. It will also give you legs all the way up to your,well, you know where. A nice addition and attraction would be to go with an open toe heels. Well manicured toes are a must if you chose this option.
The climate is another consideration if you're getting married outside. If it's going to be hot and humid, you'll want to think about sandals as your choice. After all, you'll not want to turn your new husband off with stinky feet when you remove your shoes after the wedding.
Make sure that your shoes are a comfortable fit. You'll be on your feet all day so you'll want something that feels nice. Don't try and squeeze into a shoe just for the look Wear the size that you would normally wear for your office shoes or dress pumps.
If you fall between two sizes it's best to choose the larger one. Don't sacrifice style over comfort. If your feet hurt you will feel miserable. If you decide to choose a wedding shoe with straps or ties make sure that they can be loosen easily and does not scraped onto your skin. Your wedding shoes can make or break your wedding day.
Make sure you take your new shoes on a test drive. Walk on different surfaces and break them in good before your special day. Do Not sacrifice comfort for style.
Take a piece of sandpaper to roughen the smooth finish on the sole of the shoes. This will help to avoid slipping on smooth surfaces. Its better to change your wedding shoes now than wait for the actual wedding and be sorry for not being able to walk properly on the aisle.
Once your at the reception you'll want to have a second pair of shoes handy. Keeping comfort uppermost in your mind. You'll be sitting most of the time at the reception so why would you want to have heels on?
It pays to spend extra effort in choosing the perfect pair wedding shoes. Brides in general do not give as much attention to their wedding shoes as they do to their gowns. They thought that their guest's attention would be on their dress. But most people are drawn to the bride's legs and feet if they are wearing short dress, thus giving extra attention to your wedding shoes. Would it be nice to have your best feet forward during your wedding day.
Don't despair, finding a wedding shoe doesn't have to be such a daunting proposition if you just follow a few simple details.
Let's first look at your gown and it's color and type of fabric. A rule of thumb, is to keep your shoes and gown as coordinated as closely as possible. Match the material of your wedding dress with the fabric of your shoes.
Heels would be the right choice if your going with a short or knee length dress to make your legs look slimmer. It will also give you legs all the way up to your,well, you know where. A nice addition and attraction would be to go with an open toe heels. Well manicured toes are a must if you chose this option.
The climate is another consideration if you're getting married outside. If it's going to be hot and humid, you'll want to think about sandals as your choice. After all, you'll not want to turn your new husband off with stinky feet when you remove your shoes after the wedding.
Make sure that your shoes are a comfortable fit. You'll be on your feet all day so you'll want something that feels nice. Don't try and squeeze into a shoe just for the look Wear the size that you would normally wear for your office shoes or dress pumps.
If you fall between two sizes it's best to choose the larger one. Don't sacrifice style over comfort. If your feet hurt you will feel miserable. If you decide to choose a wedding shoe with straps or ties make sure that they can be loosen easily and does not scraped onto your skin. Your wedding shoes can make or break your wedding day.
Make sure you take your new shoes on a test drive. Walk on different surfaces and break them in good before your special day. Do Not sacrifice comfort for style.
Take a piece of sandpaper to roughen the smooth finish on the sole of the shoes. This will help to avoid slipping on smooth surfaces. Its better to change your wedding shoes now than wait for the actual wedding and be sorry for not being able to walk properly on the aisle.
Once your at the reception you'll want to have a second pair of shoes handy. Keeping comfort uppermost in your mind. You'll be sitting most of the time at the reception so why would you want to have heels on?
It pays to spend extra effort in choosing the perfect pair wedding shoes. Brides in general do not give as much attention to their wedding shoes as they do to their gowns. They thought that their guest's attention would be on their dress. But most people are drawn to the bride's legs and feet if they are wearing short dress, thus giving extra attention to your wedding shoes. Would it be nice to have your best feet forward during your wedding day.
Blogging Directory
Have you looked at your website traffic lately? How much visitors actually visit your site everyday. One of the best ways to attract the visitor to your site is by writing informative blogs. A blogging directory with a high page rank can do wonders to lift the traffic of your site. Thousands of people are already successfully blogging to create better relationship with their prospects, increase client loyalty and enhance their visibility and brand recognition.
If someone takes the time to get word our there about themselves and their services or products then they are serious about business. If you are one of these people then you need to get max exposure for your blogs and just writing a blog is not enough anymore. The competition is fierce so find blog directories as some of them offer a free listing. A Blogging directory is a perfect solution to people who are in search of new information online.
Submitting your blog in an effective blogging directory can
· Boost your website traffic
· Increase the size of your email list
· Build trust with prospects and clients
· Can you earn you huge money online
If you are looking for a great business idea then submitting your blog to a directory like Surreal blog can generate lots of traffic to your website. Surreal has created a blogging directory for anyone who are interested in posting their blogs. We have additional features to help your blog get more exposure. The benefit to this is great as you get your blog listed and you can post articles.
Surreal blogging directory in a short period of time has been able to achieve a page rank of 5. Submitting your blogs to a higher Pr site can do wonders to increase your website page rank. Moreover we offer a chance to list on our directory for no fees. The purpose of this blog directory is to help our many blog writers get more exposure for their original content. As Surreal Blog works daily to make the site a high traffic area these services will only bring more exposure each month.
If someone takes the time to get word our there about themselves and their services or products then they are serious about business. If you are one of these people then you need to get max exposure for your blogs and just writing a blog is not enough anymore. The competition is fierce so find blog directories as some of them offer a free listing. A Blogging directory is a perfect solution to people who are in search of new information online.
Submitting your blog in an effective blogging directory can
· Boost your website traffic
· Increase the size of your email list
· Build trust with prospects and clients
· Can you earn you huge money online
If you are looking for a great business idea then submitting your blog to a directory like Surreal blog can generate lots of traffic to your website. Surreal has created a blogging directory for anyone who are interested in posting their blogs. We have additional features to help your blog get more exposure. The benefit to this is great as you get your blog listed and you can post articles.
Surreal blogging directory in a short period of time has been able to achieve a page rank of 5. Submitting your blogs to a higher Pr site can do wonders to increase your website page rank. Moreover we offer a chance to list on our directory for no fees. The purpose of this blog directory is to help our many blog writers get more exposure for their original content. As Surreal Blog works daily to make the site a high traffic area these services will only bring more exposure each month.
Laser Toner Cartridge
I have exclusively used compatible toner cartridges for over fifteen years. Here's what I have learned.
At first, I was very reluctant to try a compatible toner cartridge. I really didn't understand much about them. A compatible toner cartridge is a new toner cartridge made to the specific OEM specifications of the printer manufacturer. They include the same parts and toner required for your laser printer. However, they do not have the "brand name" on the label
These compatible toner cartridges are guaranteed to be as good as your original OEM cartridge. That means you will get the same quality of print. You will get the same quantity of print.
I have saved literally thousands of dollars in cost by using compatible toner cartridges. Over the years, I only had one instance where a compatible toner cartridge did not live up to my high expectations. I called the company and they sent me a new compatible toner cartridge the very next day… no questions, no hassle. Besides this one instance, I have always had outstanding print quality. I've never been shorted on the number of pages I've printed.
When you deal with a reputable online company, you save three ways. First, they stand behind their toner cartridges one hundred percent. How many companies have you dealt with that sent you a new replacement product the next day without a major hassle?
Second, these online toner companies do not have the cost of maintaining a storefront. They can pass the savings in overhead along to you.
Third, they are not trying to make up for minimal profit from the sale of a laser printer. If the major manufacturers made a reasonable profit on their printer sale, there would be no need for such a high mark up on their toner cartridges.
So, if you need a new laser toner cartridge and want to cut way back on your printer budget, try a compatible toner cartridge today.
At first, I was very reluctant to try a compatible toner cartridge. I really didn't understand much about them. A compatible toner cartridge is a new toner cartridge made to the specific OEM specifications of the printer manufacturer. They include the same parts and toner required for your laser printer. However, they do not have the "brand name" on the label
These compatible toner cartridges are guaranteed to be as good as your original OEM cartridge. That means you will get the same quality of print. You will get the same quantity of print.
I have saved literally thousands of dollars in cost by using compatible toner cartridges. Over the years, I only had one instance where a compatible toner cartridge did not live up to my high expectations. I called the company and they sent me a new compatible toner cartridge the very next day… no questions, no hassle. Besides this one instance, I have always had outstanding print quality. I've never been shorted on the number of pages I've printed.
When you deal with a reputable online company, you save three ways. First, they stand behind their toner cartridges one hundred percent. How many companies have you dealt with that sent you a new replacement product the next day without a major hassle?
Second, these online toner companies do not have the cost of maintaining a storefront. They can pass the savings in overhead along to you.
Third, they are not trying to make up for minimal profit from the sale of a laser printer. If the major manufacturers made a reasonable profit on their printer sale, there would be no need for such a high mark up on their toner cartridges.
So, if you need a new laser toner cartridge and want to cut way back on your printer budget, try a compatible toner cartridge today.
Producing Geothermal Energy
Geothermal energy is a platform tapping the inherent energy found within the Earth. Her is an overview of how the process works from a practical perspective.
Producing Energy From Geothermal Resources
There are several types of energy used in the world that are considered eco-friendly. These energy types include solar, which harnesses the power of the sun, and hydroelectric, which uses the power of water to generate electricity. One often neglected ecologically sound energy source that should be grouped with the others is geothermal energy. Geothermal energy involves using the Earth's own heat to create energy and warmth to be used by people.
Geothermal energy is so named because it derives from the Greek words for "earth heat", "geo" and "therme". Extreme amounts of heat are generated in the Earth's core, which reaches temperatures of up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Earth's core then transfers heat to the mantle, a crust of rock surrounding the core. This rock liquefies due to the intense heat becoming magma (molten rock). In this magma layer, water collects in columns or reserves. This trapped water, which can be heated to temperatures of about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, is known as a geothermal reservoir. When engineers want to use geothermal energy, they "tap" in to this geothermal water and use the resulting hot water and steam for various purposes.
Geothermal energy plants work by using the steam resulting from tapping into the geothermal water reservoirs to power turbines. These turbines spin producing electricity which can then be used to power industries or even residential areas. The first geothermically engineered power plant was built in Italy in 1904.
These days, roughly 7000 megawatts of electricity is produced by geothermal power plants per year. Geothermal power plants are located in 21 countries throughout the world. In the United States alone, enough geothermal power is generated per year to be the equivalent to the burning of 60 million barrels of oil, to wit, geothermal energy is a major source of power.
Geothermal energy has been used by cultures throughout history for thousands of years. The process used to harness geothermal energy has always been relatively simple compared to that of other energy processes, and the components used are familiar to everyone. The concept of using super hot water from the Earth's magma layers may seem high tech, but once you have tapped into this resource, it is easy to maintain and use as a continual power source.
The best analogy for geothermal energy production is another alternative energy source. It works in the same way as hydropower. Water is used to spin turbines which produce electricity. In the case of geothermal energy, however, the water comes from the internal chambers of the Earth in, most often, the form of steam.
Producing Energy From Geothermal Resources
There are several types of energy used in the world that are considered eco-friendly. These energy types include solar, which harnesses the power of the sun, and hydroelectric, which uses the power of water to generate electricity. One often neglected ecologically sound energy source that should be grouped with the others is geothermal energy. Geothermal energy involves using the Earth's own heat to create energy and warmth to be used by people.
Geothermal energy is so named because it derives from the Greek words for "earth heat", "geo" and "therme". Extreme amounts of heat are generated in the Earth's core, which reaches temperatures of up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Earth's core then transfers heat to the mantle, a crust of rock surrounding the core. This rock liquefies due to the intense heat becoming magma (molten rock). In this magma layer, water collects in columns or reserves. This trapped water, which can be heated to temperatures of about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, is known as a geothermal reservoir. When engineers want to use geothermal energy, they "tap" in to this geothermal water and use the resulting hot water and steam for various purposes.
Geothermal energy plants work by using the steam resulting from tapping into the geothermal water reservoirs to power turbines. These turbines spin producing electricity which can then be used to power industries or even residential areas. The first geothermically engineered power plant was built in Italy in 1904.
These days, roughly 7000 megawatts of electricity is produced by geothermal power plants per year. Geothermal power plants are located in 21 countries throughout the world. In the United States alone, enough geothermal power is generated per year to be the equivalent to the burning of 60 million barrels of oil, to wit, geothermal energy is a major source of power.
Geothermal energy has been used by cultures throughout history for thousands of years. The process used to harness geothermal energy has always been relatively simple compared to that of other energy processes, and the components used are familiar to everyone. The concept of using super hot water from the Earth's magma layers may seem high tech, but once you have tapped into this resource, it is easy to maintain and use as a continual power source.
The best analogy for geothermal energy production is another alternative energy source. It works in the same way as hydropower. Water is used to spin turbines which produce electricity. In the case of geothermal energy, however, the water comes from the internal chambers of the Earth in, most often, the form of steam.
Finally a great site that will make you a professional at playing the guita
"Can you imagine that today you can learn guitar at home for any level or style? In fact this is very much possible today as people can quickly log on to the internet and get access to free, user friendly video guitar lessons from the comfort of their home. One site that needs a special mention is learnguitar.
The site contains detailed lessons on guitar playing right from the basics to the most advanced techniques. Hence anyone who wants to start playing the guitar can refer to the site and have a personalized guitar lesson plan created just for them. One can start with the basic lessons of holding the guitar in the correct manner and also learn as to what the string names are, about chords and scales and even basic soloing techniques.
The site promises you that with just two weeks of structured guitar lessons can give you the desired results. After just two weeks you could start playing for small parties and group gatherings, however it is continuous practicing that makes you perfect and hence the site recommends that one should devote some time to guitar playing to become the guitarist you always dreamed of.
As mentioned before, the site contains step by step tutorials which are arranged in a logical manner. Hence one can start from the first chapter and then move on to the next one after mastering it. Unlike other free guitar learning sites that have taken guitar lessons from other sites and placed them here and there, learnguitar stresses on a proper flow of all the chapters so that the student does not become confused. There are lessons for playing different guitars such as acoustic and electric guitar. The technique for playing both these styles of guitar is slightly different and learnguitar will help you master both the techniques. <
The site contains detailed lessons on guitar playing right from the basics to the most advanced techniques. Hence anyone who wants to start playing the guitar can refer to the site and have a personalized guitar lesson plan created just for them. One can start with the basic lessons of holding the guitar in the correct manner and also learn as to what the string names are, about chords and scales and even basic soloing techniques.
The site promises you that with just two weeks of structured guitar lessons can give you the desired results. After just two weeks you could start playing for small parties and group gatherings, however it is continuous practicing that makes you perfect and hence the site recommends that one should devote some time to guitar playing to become the guitarist you always dreamed of.
As mentioned before, the site contains step by step tutorials which are arranged in a logical manner. Hence one can start from the first chapter and then move on to the next one after mastering it. Unlike other free guitar learning sites that have taken guitar lessons from other sites and placed them here and there, learnguitar stresses on a proper flow of all the chapters so that the student does not become confused. There are lessons for playing different guitars such as acoustic and electric guitar. The technique for playing both these styles of guitar is slightly different and learnguitar will help you master both the techniques. <
Publicity From Thirty Thousand Feet
We all know that marketing a book is a process. But sometimes the process takes longer than we'd anticipated. That's why it's nice every now and again to hop aboard the publicity jet and get a look-see at what you've been doing from the thirty-thousand foot level. Why? Well, first off this birds-eye view will reveal to you areas you might be overlooking or other options for marketing you hadn't considered.
To accomplish this bird-eye view you'll want to get yourself a big white board, or something else big enough to chart your flight plan on. Then, once you've gotten that start charting the course you've taken so far. Don't leave a single thing out; it doesn't matter what it is. What you want to end up with is a serious list of everything you've done from the time you held your first proof book in your hands.
One of the things this type of a project will do is give you a new perspective on what you're doing. It will show you areas that you've possibly been spending too much time on or potential holes in your campaign. Sketching out your marketing campaign will also give you a chance to see what's been leveraging you results and what hasn't. Keep in mind that some things like bulk sales and national media might take longer than other items so you'll want to keep putting forth effort toward those long-term goals. But let's say you've been spending tons of time doing radio but nothing really seems to be happening in that area. You then look over to your speaking engagement section and realize you haven't done a lot with that recently. Perhaps it's time to pull back on radio and start pushing speaking events.
To accomplish this bird-eye view you'll want to get yourself a big white board, or something else big enough to chart your flight plan on. Then, once you've gotten that start charting the course you've taken so far. Don't leave a single thing out; it doesn't matter what it is. What you want to end up with is a serious list of everything you've done from the time you held your first proof book in your hands.
One of the things this type of a project will do is give you a new perspective on what you're doing. It will show you areas that you've possibly been spending too much time on or potential holes in your campaign. Sketching out your marketing campaign will also give you a chance to see what's been leveraging you results and what hasn't. Keep in mind that some things like bulk sales and national media might take longer than other items so you'll want to keep putting forth effort toward those long-term goals. But let's say you've been spending tons of time doing radio but nothing really seems to be happening in that area. You then look over to your speaking engagement section and realize you haven't done a lot with that recently. Perhaps it's time to pull back on radio and start pushing speaking events.
Popular and Cute Baby shoes
One of the greatest mysteries of life is the effort and money put into the purchase of baby clothing.
Infants are not bothered about the quality of their outfits. They will cry anyway, even if they are kitted in a Versace shirt!
Even this will not deter the average parent, they will still go out of their way to buy expensive baby items, chief among which are baby shoes.
Parents buy all kinds of baby shoes for their tots. From baby sneakers to little ballet shoes, name it and some babies have them.
The strange fact is these purchases were made with the perfect knowledge that the infants are not going to run on a track or attend dancing classes.
Though, the function of baby shoes is slightly different from those of adult shoes, they still share some basic similarities.
They need to protect the fragile feet, and hold up to crawling around, and possibly a bit of drool.
And while adult shoes go through much more than this, the fact still is, almost any baby shoe will hold up just fine when the baby is not yet walking.
Thus, the other reason parents buy baby shoes is just to show off their baby's cute shoes to friends and other people.
Things become more interesting from here.
It is generally believed that cuteness is accomplished in a baby shoe through the miniature size of its every feature.
A closer look at babies will reveal a startling fact: they are not really very attractive creatures. Not with their big heads and pudgy features.
The real thrill many get out of babies is just that they are tiny, and somewhat odd versions of us.
This is the same with baby shoes; they look like smaller, pudgier versions of our footwear.
Along with this cuteness, there are certain designs that are more popular among baby clothes, and baby shoes, than among adult clothing.
Things like butterflies, hearts, and especially little cute baby animals make a very popular design for decorations on baby shoes.
Infants are not bothered about the quality of their outfits. They will cry anyway, even if they are kitted in a Versace shirt!
Even this will not deter the average parent, they will still go out of their way to buy expensive baby items, chief among which are baby shoes.
Parents buy all kinds of baby shoes for their tots. From baby sneakers to little ballet shoes, name it and some babies have them.
The strange fact is these purchases were made with the perfect knowledge that the infants are not going to run on a track or attend dancing classes.
Though, the function of baby shoes is slightly different from those of adult shoes, they still share some basic similarities.
They need to protect the fragile feet, and hold up to crawling around, and possibly a bit of drool.
And while adult shoes go through much more than this, the fact still is, almost any baby shoe will hold up just fine when the baby is not yet walking.
Thus, the other reason parents buy baby shoes is just to show off their baby's cute shoes to friends and other people.
Things become more interesting from here.
It is generally believed that cuteness is accomplished in a baby shoe through the miniature size of its every feature.
A closer look at babies will reveal a startling fact: they are not really very attractive creatures. Not with their big heads and pudgy features.
The real thrill many get out of babies is just that they are tiny, and somewhat odd versions of us.
This is the same with baby shoes; they look like smaller, pudgier versions of our footwear.
Along with this cuteness, there are certain designs that are more popular among baby clothes, and baby shoes, than among adult clothing.
Things like butterflies, hearts, and especially little cute baby animals make a very popular design for decorations on baby shoes.
Coin Collecting
One of the most popular hobbies today is coin collecting. Coin collecting is a fun pastime that can be enjoyed by anyone.
The premise of coin collecting lies in the idea that certain coins are more valuable than others. Amateur collectors often save a coin if they notice it has a date that reaches back several decades.
Many adults and children enjoy coin collecting. For the majority of these people their collections are limited to old coins or coins from other countries. They take pleasure in finding something unusual and keeping it to show others.
There are amateur coin collectors who save a coin from each locale they travel to. They find the currency of other countries interesting and over time and through extended travel, they can compile an impressive collection.
Others only save coins that hold significance for them. This could mean a coin from the year they were born or the year their parents or siblings were born. Coin collecting in this way is a lovely testament to the person's life and it makes a nice keepsake to pass along to the next generation.
Serious coin collecting is an art form onto itself. There are collectors who invest an incredible amount of time and money in pursuing the perfect collection.
In most cases of serious coin collecting the collector has a specialty that they concentrate on. For some it's a certain time frame and they are always looking to obtain more coins from those years. For others it is a certain denomination of coin. They only collect quarters or pennies and they focus on finding rare denomination of these coins.
There are many places that a coin collector can go to find a new treasure. There are several auction sites online that cater to coin collecting. Images of coins are posted along with a description of their condition and price.
Many of these sites have hundreds of coins posted and for the avid collector it gives them an opportunity to contribute to their collection.
It's often thought that in order to go into the hobby of coin collecting a person needs to be wealthy. Although it's true that some coins are very costly the amateur collector can begin a collection on a relatively low budget.
There are affordable treasures to be found in the coin collecting market. One of the first things every coin collector should do is check their spare change on a daily basis. Although it's not often that a valuable coin is in circulation it does happen.
Another area of coin collecting that many people are interested in is coins that contain errors. Although it doesn't happen very often there have been coins placed into circulation that contained errors. The error might be an off-center coin or a coin that has a double mint mark. These coins can be very valuable mainly because they are one of a kind.
Finding these types of coins can be more difficult than general coin collecting but for the people who participate they get their enjoyment when they do find a coin with a mistake on it.
Coin collecting can be a fun and profitable hobby. You can start out small and once you begin to build a collection the sky is the limit.
The premise of coin collecting lies in the idea that certain coins are more valuable than others. Amateur collectors often save a coin if they notice it has a date that reaches back several decades.
Many adults and children enjoy coin collecting. For the majority of these people their collections are limited to old coins or coins from other countries. They take pleasure in finding something unusual and keeping it to show others.
There are amateur coin collectors who save a coin from each locale they travel to. They find the currency of other countries interesting and over time and through extended travel, they can compile an impressive collection.
Others only save coins that hold significance for them. This could mean a coin from the year they were born or the year their parents or siblings were born. Coin collecting in this way is a lovely testament to the person's life and it makes a nice keepsake to pass along to the next generation.
Serious coin collecting is an art form onto itself. There are collectors who invest an incredible amount of time and money in pursuing the perfect collection.
In most cases of serious coin collecting the collector has a specialty that they concentrate on. For some it's a certain time frame and they are always looking to obtain more coins from those years. For others it is a certain denomination of coin. They only collect quarters or pennies and they focus on finding rare denomination of these coins.
There are many places that a coin collector can go to find a new treasure. There are several auction sites online that cater to coin collecting. Images of coins are posted along with a description of their condition and price.
Many of these sites have hundreds of coins posted and for the avid collector it gives them an opportunity to contribute to their collection.
It's often thought that in order to go into the hobby of coin collecting a person needs to be wealthy. Although it's true that some coins are very costly the amateur collector can begin a collection on a relatively low budget.
There are affordable treasures to be found in the coin collecting market. One of the first things every coin collector should do is check their spare change on a daily basis. Although it's not often that a valuable coin is in circulation it does happen.
Another area of coin collecting that many people are interested in is coins that contain errors. Although it doesn't happen very often there have been coins placed into circulation that contained errors. The error might be an off-center coin or a coin that has a double mint mark. These coins can be very valuable mainly because they are one of a kind.
Finding these types of coins can be more difficult than general coin collecting but for the people who participate they get their enjoyment when they do find a coin with a mistake on it.
Coin collecting can be a fun and profitable hobby. You can start out small and once you begin to build a collection the sky is the limit.
On Emphaty
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1999 edition) defines empathy as:
"The ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on "sympathy." The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing. With other works of art, a spectator may, by a kind of introjection, feel himself involved in what he observes or contemplates. The use of empathy is an important part of the counselling technique developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers."
Empathy is predicated upon and must, therefore, incorporate the following elements:
Imagination which is dependent on the ability to imagine;
The existence of an accessible Self (self-awareness or self-consciousness);
The existence of an available other (other-awareness, recognizing the outside world);
The existence of accessible feelings, desires, ideas and representations of actions or their outcomes both in the empathizing Self ("Empathor") and in the Other, the object of empathy ("Empathee");
The availability of an aesthetic frame of reference;
The availability of a moral frame of reference.
While (a) is presumed to be universally available to all agents (though in varying degrees) - the existence of the other components of empathy should not be taken for granted.
Conditions (b) and (c), for instance, are not satisfied by people who suffer from personality disorders, such as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Condition (d) is not met in autistic people (e.g., those who suffer from the Asperger syndrome). Conditions (e) is so totally dependent on the specifics of the culture, period and society in which it exists - that it is rather meaningless and ambiguous as a yardstick. Condition (f) suffer from both afflictions: it is both culture-dependent AND is not satisfied in many people (such as those who suffer from the Antisocial Personality Disorder and who are devoid of any conscience or moral sense).
Thus, the very existence of empathy should be questioned. It is often confused with inter-subjectivity. The latter is defined thus by "The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995":
"This term refers to the status of being somehow accessible to at least two (usually all, in principle) minds or 'subjectivities'. It thus implies that there is some sort of communication between those minds; which in turn implies that each communicating minds aware not only of the existence of the other but also of its intention to convey information to the other. The idea, for theorists, is that if subjective processes can be brought into agreement, then perhaps that is as good as the (unattainable?) status of being objective - completely independent of subjectivity. The question facing such theorists is whether intersubjectivity is definable without presupposing an objective environment in which communication takes place (the 'wiring' from subject A to subject B). At a less fundamental level, however, the need for intersubjective verification of scientific hypotheses has been long recognized". (page 414).
On the face of it, the difference between intersubjectivity and empathy is double:
Intersubjectivity requires an EXPLICIT, communicated agreement between at least two subjects.
It involves EXTERNAL things (so called "objective" entities).
These "differences" are artificial. This how empathy is defined in "Psychology - An Introduction (Ninth Edition) by Charles G. Morris, Prentice Hall, 1996":
"Closely related to the ability to read other people's emotions is empathy - the arousal of an emotion in an observer that is a vicarious response to the other person's situation... Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy: The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for empathy develop only as a child matures... (page 442)
In empathy training, for example, each member of the couple is taught to share inner feelings and to listen to and understand the partner's feelings before responding to them. The empathy technique focuses the couple's attention on feelings and requires that they spend more time listening and less time in rebuttal." (page 576).
Thus empathy does require the communication of feelings AND an agreement on the appropriate outcome of the communicated emotions (=affective agreement). In the absence of such agreement, we are faced with inappropriate affect (laughing at a funeral, for instance).
Moreover, empathy does relate to external objects and is provoked by them. There is no empathy in the absence of an empathee. Granted, intersubjectivity is intuitively applied to the inanimate while empathy is applied to the living (animals, humans, even plants). But this is a difference in human preferences - not in definition.
Empathy can, thus, be re-defined as a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as "objects" to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is wrong to limit empathy to the communication of emotion. It is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee's emotions but also with his physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).
This leads to the important (and perhaps intractable) psychophysical question.
Intersubjectivity relates to external objects but the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY have been affected by the objects.
Empathy relates to external objects (the Others) but the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY would have felt had they BEEN the object.
This is no minor difference, if it, indeed, exists. But does it really exist?
What is it that we feel in empathy? Is it OUR emotions/sensations merely provoked by an external trigger (classic intersubjectivity) or is it a TRANSFER of the object's feelings/sensations to us?
Such a transfer being physically impossible (as far as we know) - we are forced to adopt the former model. Empathy is the set of reactions - emotional and cognitive - to triggering by an external object (the other). It is the equivalent of resonance in the physical sciences. But we have NO WAY to ascertain the "wavelength" of such resonance is identical in both subjects. In other words, we have no way to verify that the feelings or sensation invoked in the two (or more) subjects are one and the same. What I call "sadness" may not be what you call "sadness". Colours have unique, uniform, independently measurable properties (like energy). Still, no one can prove that what I see as "red" is what another calls "red" (as is the case with Daltonists). If this is true where "objective", measurable, phenomena are concerned - it is infinitely true in the case of emotions or feelings.
We are, therefore, forced to refine our definition:
Empathy is a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as "objects" to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee's emotions but also with his physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).
BUT
The meaning attributed to the words used by the parties to the intersubjective agreement known as empathy is totally dependent upon each party. The same words are used, the same denotates - but it cannot be proven that the same connotates, the same experiences, emotions and sensations are being discussed or communicated.
Language (and, by extension, art and culture) serve to introduce us to other points of view ("what is it like to be someone else" to paraphrase Thomas Nagle). By providing a bridge between the subjective (inner experience) and the objective (words, images, sounds) -language facilitates social exchange and interaction. It is a dictionary which translates one's subjective private language to the coin of the public medium. Knowledge and language are, thus, the ultimate social glue, though both are based on approximations and guesses (see George Steiner's "After Babel").
But, whereas the intersubjective agreement regarding measurements and observations concerning external objects IS verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools (e.g., lab experiments) - the intersubjective agreement which concerns itself with the emotions, sensations and experiences of subjects as communicated by them IS NOT verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools. The interpretation of this second kind of agreement is dependent upon introspection and an assumption that identical words used by different subjects still possess identical meaning. This assumption is not falsifiable (or verifiable). It is neither true nor false. It is a probabilistic statement with no probabilities attached. It is, in short, a meaningless statement. As a result, empathy itself is meaningless.
In human-speak, if you say that you are said and I empathize with you it means that we have an agreement. I regard you as my object. You communicate to me a property of yours ("sadness"). This triggers in me a recollection of "what is sadness" or "what is to be sad". I say that I know what you mean, I have been sad before, I know what it is like to be sad. I empathize with you. We agree about being sad. We have an intersubjective agreement.
Alas, such an agreement is meaningless. We cannot (yet) measure sadness, quantify it, crystallize it, access it in any way from the outside. We are totally and absolutely reliant on your introspection and my introspection. There is no way anyone can prove that my "sadness" is even remotely similar to your sadness. I may be feeling or experiencing something that you might find hilarious and not sad at all. Still, I call it "sadness" and I empathize with you.
This would not have been that grave if empathy hadn't been the cornerstone of morality.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1999 Edition:
"Empathy and other forms of social awareness are important in the development of a moral sense. Morality embraces a person's beliefs about the appropriateness or goodness of what he does, thinks, or feels... Childhood is ... the time at which moral standards begin to develop in a process that often extends well into adulthood. The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg hypothesized that people's development of moral standards passes through stages that can be grouped into three moral levels...
At the third level, that of postconventional moral reasoning, the adult bases his moral standards on principles that he himself has evaluated and that he accepts as inherently valid, regardless of society's opinion. He is aware of the arbitrary, subjective nature of social standards and rules, which he regards as relative rather than absolute in authority.
Thus the bases for justifying moral standards pass from avoidance of punishment to avoidance of adult disapproval and rejection to avoidance of internal guilt and self-recrimination. The person's moral reasoning also moves toward increasingly greater social scope (i.e., including more people and institutions) and greater abstraction (i.e., from reasoning about physical events such as pain or pleasure to reasoning about values, rights, and implicit contracts)."<
But, if moral reasoning is based on introspection and empathy - it is, indeed, dangerously relative and not objective in any known sense of the word. Empathy is a unique agreement on the emotional and experiential content of two or more introspective processes in two or more subjective. Such an agreement can never have any meaning, even as far as the parties to it are concerned. They can never be sure that they are discussing the same emotions or experiences. There is no way to compare, measure, observe, falsify or verify (prove) that the "same" emotion is experienced identically by the parties to the empathy agreement. Empathy is meaningless and introspection involves a private language despite what Wittgenstein had to say. Morality is thus reduced to a set of meaningless private languages.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"... Others have argued that because even rather young children are capable of showing empathy with the pain of others, the inhibition of aggressive behaviour arises from this moral affect rather than from the mere anticipation of punishment. Some scientists have found that children differ in their individual capacity for empathy, and, therefore, some children are more sensitive to moral prohibitions than others.
Young children's growing awareness of their own emotional states, characteristics, and abilities leads to empathy--i.e., the ability to appreciate the feelings and perspectives of others. Empathy and other forms of social awareness are in turn important in the development of a moral sense... Another important aspect of children's emotional development is the formation of their self-concept, or identity--i.e., their sense of who they are and what their relation to other people is.
According to Lipps's concept of empathy, a person appreciates another person's reaction by a projection of the self into the other. In his Ästhetik, 2 vol. (1903-06; 'Aesthetics'), he made all appreciation of art dependent upon a similar self-projection into the object."
This may well be the key. Empathy has little to do with the other person (the empathee). It is simply the result of conditioning and socialization. In other words, when we hurt someone - we don't experience his pain. We experience OUR pain. Hurting somebody - hurts US. The reaction of pain is provoked in US by OUR own actions. We have been taught a learned response of feeling pain when we inflict it upon another. But we have also been taught to feel responsible for our fellow beings (guilt). So, we experience pain whenever another person claims to experience it as well. We feel guilty.
In sum:
To use the example of pain, we experience it in tandem with another person because we feel guilty or somehow responsible for his condition. A learned reaction is activated and we experience (our kind of) pain as well. We communicate it to the other person and an agreement of empathy is struck between us.
We attribute feelings, sensations and experiences to the object of our actions. It is the psychological defence mechanism of projection. Unable to conceive of inflicting pain upon ourselves - we displace the source. It is the other's pain that we are feeling, we keep telling ourselves, not our own.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"Perhaps the most important aspect of children's emotional development is a growing awareness of their own emotional states and the ability to discern and interpret the emotions of others. The last half of the second year is a time when children start becoming aware of their own emotional states, characteristics, abilities, and potential for action; this phenomenon is called self-awareness... (coupled with strong narcissistic behaviours and traits - SV)...
This growing awareness of and ability to recall one's own emotional states leads to empathy, or the ability to appreciate the feelings and perceptions of others. Young children's dawning awareness of their own potential for action inspires them to try to direct (or otherwise affect) the behaviour of others...
...With age, children acquire the ability to understand the perspective, or point of view, of other people, a development that is closely linked with the empathic sharing of others' emotions...
One major factor underlying these changes is the child's increasing cognitive sophistication. For example, in order to feel the emotion of guilt, a child must appreciate the fact that he could have inhibited a particular action of his that violated a moral standard. The awareness that one can impose a restraint on one's own behaviour requires a certain level of cognitive maturation, and, therefore, the emotion of guilt cannot appear until that competence is attained."
That empathy is a REACTION to external stimuli that is fully contained within the empathor and then projected onto the empathee - is clearly demonstrated by "inborn empathy". It is the ability to exhibit empathy and altruistic behaviour in response to facial expressions. Newborns react this way to their mother's facial expression of sadness or distress.
This serves to prove that empathy has very little to do with the feelings, experiences or sensations of the other (the empathee). Surely, the infant has no idea what it is like to feel sad and definitely not what it is like for his mother to feel sad. In this case, it is a complex reflexive reaction. Later on, empathy is still rather reflexive, the result of conditioning.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica quotes fascinating research which dramatically proves the object-independent nature of empathy. Empathy is an internal reaction, an internal process, triggered by external cue provided by animate objects. It is communicated to the empathee-other by the empathor but the communication and the resulting agreement ("I know how you feel therefore we agree on how you feel") is rendered meaningless by the absence of a monovalent, unambiguous dictionary.
"An extensive series of studies indicated that positive emotion feelings enhance empathy and altruism. It was shown by the American psychologist Alice M. Isen that relatively small favours or bits of good luck (like finding money in a coin telephone or getting an unexpected gift) induced positive emotion in people and that such emotion regularly increased the subjects' inclination to sympathize or provide help.
Several studies have demonstrated that positive emotion facilitates creative problem solving. One of these studies showed that positive emotion enabled subjects to name more uses for common objects. Another showed that positive emotion enhanced creative problem solving by enabling subjects to see relations among objects (and other people - SV) that would otherwise go unnoticed. A number of studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of positive emotion on thinking, memory, and action in pre-school and older children."
If empathy increases with positive emotion (a result of good luck, for instance) - then it has little to do with its objects and a lot to do with the person in whom it is provoked.
ADDENDUM - Interview granted to the National Post, Toronto, Canada, July 2003
Q. How important is empathy to proper psychological functioning?
A. Empathy is more important socially than it is psychologically. The absence of empathy - for instance in the Narcissistic and Antisocial personality disorders - predisposes people to exploit and abuse others. Empathy is the bedrock of our sense of morality. Arguably, aggressive behavior is as inhibited by empathy at least as much as it is by anticipated punishment.
But the existence of empathy in a person is also a sign of self-awareness, a healthy identity, a well-regulated sense of self-worth, and self-love (in the positive sense). Its absence denotes emotional and cognitive immaturity, an inability to love, to truly relate to others, to respect their boundaries and accept their needs, feelings, hopes, fears, choices, and preferences as autonomous entities.
Q. How is empathy developed?
A. It may be innate. Even toddlers seem to empathize with the pain - or happiness - of others (such as their caregivers). Empathy increases as the child forms a self-concept (identity). The more aware the infant is of his or her emotional states, the more he explores his limitations and capabilities - the more prone he is to projecting this new found knowledge unto others. By attributing to people around him his new gained insights about himself, the child develop a moral sense and inhibits his anti-social impulses. The development of empathy is, therefore, a part of the process of socialization.
But, as the American psychologist Carl Rogers taught us, empathy is also learned and inculcated. We are coached to feel guilt and pain when we inflict suffering on another person. Empathy is an attempt to avoid our own self-imposed agony by projecting it onto another.
Q. Is there an increasing dearth of empathy in society today? Why do you think so?
A. The social institutions that reified, propagated and administered empathy have imploded. The nuclear family, the closely-knit extended clan, the village, the neighborhood, the Church- have all unraveled. Society is atomized and anomic. The resulting alienation fostered a wave of antisocial behavior, both criminal and "legitimate". The survival value of empathy is on the decline. It is far wiser to be cunning, to cut corners, to deceive, and to abuse - than to be empathic. Empathy has largely dropped from the contemporary curriculum of socialization.
In a desperate attempt to cope with these inexorable processes, behaviors predicated on a lack of empathy have been pathologized and "medicalized". The sad truth is that narcissistic or antisocial conduct is both normative and rational. No amount of "diagnosis", "treatment", and medication can hide or reverse this fact. Ours is a cultural malaise which permeates every single cell and strand of the social fabric.
Q. Is there any empirical evidence we can point to of a decline in empathy?
Empathy cannot be measured directly - but only through proxies such as criminality, terrorism, charity, violence, antisocial behavior, related mental health disorders, or abuse.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to separate the effects of deterrence from the effects of empathy.
If I don't batter my wife, torture animals, or steal - is it because I am empathetic or because I don't want to go to jail?
Rising litigiousness, zero tolerance, and skyrocketing rates of incarceration - as well as the ageing of the population - have sliced intimate partner violence and other forms of crime across the United States in the last decade. But this benevolent decline had nothing to do with increasing empathy.
The statistics are open to interpretation but it would be safe to say that the last century has been the most violent and least empathetic in human history. Wars and terrorism are on the rise, charity giving on the wane (measured as percentage of national wealth), welfare policies are being abolished, Darwininan models of capitalism are spreading. In the last two decades, mental health disorders were added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association whose hallmark is the lack of empathy. The violence is reflected in our popular culture: movies, video games, and the media.
Empathy - supposedly a spontaneous reaction to the plight of our fellow humans - is now channeled through self-interested and bloated non-government organizations or multilateral outfits. The vibrant world of private empathy has been replaced by faceless state largesse. Pity, mercy, the elation of giving are tax-deductible. It is a sorry sight.
url :http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Psychology/On-Empathy
"The ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on "sympathy." The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing. With other works of art, a spectator may, by a kind of introjection, feel himself involved in what he observes or contemplates. The use of empathy is an important part of the counselling technique developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers."
Empathy is predicated upon and must, therefore, incorporate the following elements:
Imagination which is dependent on the ability to imagine;
The existence of an accessible Self (self-awareness or self-consciousness);
The existence of an available other (other-awareness, recognizing the outside world);
The existence of accessible feelings, desires, ideas and representations of actions or their outcomes both in the empathizing Self ("Empathor") and in the Other, the object of empathy ("Empathee");
The availability of an aesthetic frame of reference;
The availability of a moral frame of reference.
While (a) is presumed to be universally available to all agents (though in varying degrees) - the existence of the other components of empathy should not be taken for granted.
Conditions (b) and (c), for instance, are not satisfied by people who suffer from personality disorders, such as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Condition (d) is not met in autistic people (e.g., those who suffer from the Asperger syndrome). Conditions (e) is so totally dependent on the specifics of the culture, period and society in which it exists - that it is rather meaningless and ambiguous as a yardstick. Condition (f) suffer from both afflictions: it is both culture-dependent AND is not satisfied in many people (such as those who suffer from the Antisocial Personality Disorder and who are devoid of any conscience or moral sense).
Thus, the very existence of empathy should be questioned. It is often confused with inter-subjectivity. The latter is defined thus by "The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995":
"This term refers to the status of being somehow accessible to at least two (usually all, in principle) minds or 'subjectivities'. It thus implies that there is some sort of communication between those minds; which in turn implies that each communicating minds aware not only of the existence of the other but also of its intention to convey information to the other. The idea, for theorists, is that if subjective processes can be brought into agreement, then perhaps that is as good as the (unattainable?) status of being objective - completely independent of subjectivity. The question facing such theorists is whether intersubjectivity is definable without presupposing an objective environment in which communication takes place (the 'wiring' from subject A to subject B). At a less fundamental level, however, the need for intersubjective verification of scientific hypotheses has been long recognized". (page 414).
On the face of it, the difference between intersubjectivity and empathy is double:
Intersubjectivity requires an EXPLICIT, communicated agreement between at least two subjects.
It involves EXTERNAL things (so called "objective" entities).
These "differences" are artificial. This how empathy is defined in "Psychology - An Introduction (Ninth Edition) by Charles G. Morris, Prentice Hall, 1996":
"Closely related to the ability to read other people's emotions is empathy - the arousal of an emotion in an observer that is a vicarious response to the other person's situation... Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy: The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for empathy develop only as a child matures... (page 442)
In empathy training, for example, each member of the couple is taught to share inner feelings and to listen to and understand the partner's feelings before responding to them. The empathy technique focuses the couple's attention on feelings and requires that they spend more time listening and less time in rebuttal." (page 576).
Thus empathy does require the communication of feelings AND an agreement on the appropriate outcome of the communicated emotions (=affective agreement). In the absence of such agreement, we are faced with inappropriate affect (laughing at a funeral, for instance).
Moreover, empathy does relate to external objects and is provoked by them. There is no empathy in the absence of an empathee. Granted, intersubjectivity is intuitively applied to the inanimate while empathy is applied to the living (animals, humans, even plants). But this is a difference in human preferences - not in definition.
Empathy can, thus, be re-defined as a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as "objects" to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is wrong to limit empathy to the communication of emotion. It is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee's emotions but also with his physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).
This leads to the important (and perhaps intractable) psychophysical question.
Intersubjectivity relates to external objects but the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY have been affected by the objects.
Empathy relates to external objects (the Others) but the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY would have felt had they BEEN the object.
This is no minor difference, if it, indeed, exists. But does it really exist?
What is it that we feel in empathy? Is it OUR emotions/sensations merely provoked by an external trigger (classic intersubjectivity) or is it a TRANSFER of the object's feelings/sensations to us?
Such a transfer being physically impossible (as far as we know) - we are forced to adopt the former model. Empathy is the set of reactions - emotional and cognitive - to triggering by an external object (the other). It is the equivalent of resonance in the physical sciences. But we have NO WAY to ascertain the "wavelength" of such resonance is identical in both subjects. In other words, we have no way to verify that the feelings or sensation invoked in the two (or more) subjects are one and the same. What I call "sadness" may not be what you call "sadness". Colours have unique, uniform, independently measurable properties (like energy). Still, no one can prove that what I see as "red" is what another calls "red" (as is the case with Daltonists). If this is true where "objective", measurable, phenomena are concerned - it is infinitely true in the case of emotions or feelings.
We are, therefore, forced to refine our definition:
Empathy is a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as "objects" to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee's emotions but also with his physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).
BUT
The meaning attributed to the words used by the parties to the intersubjective agreement known as empathy is totally dependent upon each party. The same words are used, the same denotates - but it cannot be proven that the same connotates, the same experiences, emotions and sensations are being discussed or communicated.
Language (and, by extension, art and culture) serve to introduce us to other points of view ("what is it like to be someone else" to paraphrase Thomas Nagle). By providing a bridge between the subjective (inner experience) and the objective (words, images, sounds) -language facilitates social exchange and interaction. It is a dictionary which translates one's subjective private language to the coin of the public medium. Knowledge and language are, thus, the ultimate social glue, though both are based on approximations and guesses (see George Steiner's "After Babel").
But, whereas the intersubjective agreement regarding measurements and observations concerning external objects IS verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools (e.g., lab experiments) - the intersubjective agreement which concerns itself with the emotions, sensations and experiences of subjects as communicated by them IS NOT verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools. The interpretation of this second kind of agreement is dependent upon introspection and an assumption that identical words used by different subjects still possess identical meaning. This assumption is not falsifiable (or verifiable). It is neither true nor false. It is a probabilistic statement with no probabilities attached. It is, in short, a meaningless statement. As a result, empathy itself is meaningless.
In human-speak, if you say that you are said and I empathize with you it means that we have an agreement. I regard you as my object. You communicate to me a property of yours ("sadness"). This triggers in me a recollection of "what is sadness" or "what is to be sad". I say that I know what you mean, I have been sad before, I know what it is like to be sad. I empathize with you. We agree about being sad. We have an intersubjective agreement.
Alas, such an agreement is meaningless. We cannot (yet) measure sadness, quantify it, crystallize it, access it in any way from the outside. We are totally and absolutely reliant on your introspection and my introspection. There is no way anyone can prove that my "sadness" is even remotely similar to your sadness. I may be feeling or experiencing something that you might find hilarious and not sad at all. Still, I call it "sadness" and I empathize with you.
This would not have been that grave if empathy hadn't been the cornerstone of morality.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1999 Edition:
"Empathy and other forms of social awareness are important in the development of a moral sense. Morality embraces a person's beliefs about the appropriateness or goodness of what he does, thinks, or feels... Childhood is ... the time at which moral standards begin to develop in a process that often extends well into adulthood. The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg hypothesized that people's development of moral standards passes through stages that can be grouped into three moral levels...
At the third level, that of postconventional moral reasoning, the adult bases his moral standards on principles that he himself has evaluated and that he accepts as inherently valid, regardless of society's opinion. He is aware of the arbitrary, subjective nature of social standards and rules, which he regards as relative rather than absolute in authority.
Thus the bases for justifying moral standards pass from avoidance of punishment to avoidance of adult disapproval and rejection to avoidance of internal guilt and self-recrimination. The person's moral reasoning also moves toward increasingly greater social scope (i.e., including more people and institutions) and greater abstraction (i.e., from reasoning about physical events such as pain or pleasure to reasoning about values, rights, and implicit contracts)."<
But, if moral reasoning is based on introspection and empathy - it is, indeed, dangerously relative and not objective in any known sense of the word. Empathy is a unique agreement on the emotional and experiential content of two or more introspective processes in two or more subjective. Such an agreement can never have any meaning, even as far as the parties to it are concerned. They can never be sure that they are discussing the same emotions or experiences. There is no way to compare, measure, observe, falsify or verify (prove) that the "same" emotion is experienced identically by the parties to the empathy agreement. Empathy is meaningless and introspection involves a private language despite what Wittgenstein had to say. Morality is thus reduced to a set of meaningless private languages.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"... Others have argued that because even rather young children are capable of showing empathy with the pain of others, the inhibition of aggressive behaviour arises from this moral affect rather than from the mere anticipation of punishment. Some scientists have found that children differ in their individual capacity for empathy, and, therefore, some children are more sensitive to moral prohibitions than others.
Young children's growing awareness of their own emotional states, characteristics, and abilities leads to empathy--i.e., the ability to appreciate the feelings and perspectives of others. Empathy and other forms of social awareness are in turn important in the development of a moral sense... Another important aspect of children's emotional development is the formation of their self-concept, or identity--i.e., their sense of who they are and what their relation to other people is.
According to Lipps's concept of empathy, a person appreciates another person's reaction by a projection of the self into the other. In his Ästhetik, 2 vol. (1903-06; 'Aesthetics'), he made all appreciation of art dependent upon a similar self-projection into the object."
This may well be the key. Empathy has little to do with the other person (the empathee). It is simply the result of conditioning and socialization. In other words, when we hurt someone - we don't experience his pain. We experience OUR pain. Hurting somebody - hurts US. The reaction of pain is provoked in US by OUR own actions. We have been taught a learned response of feeling pain when we inflict it upon another. But we have also been taught to feel responsible for our fellow beings (guilt). So, we experience pain whenever another person claims to experience it as well. We feel guilty.
In sum:
To use the example of pain, we experience it in tandem with another person because we feel guilty or somehow responsible for his condition. A learned reaction is activated and we experience (our kind of) pain as well. We communicate it to the other person and an agreement of empathy is struck between us.
We attribute feelings, sensations and experiences to the object of our actions. It is the psychological defence mechanism of projection. Unable to conceive of inflicting pain upon ourselves - we displace the source. It is the other's pain that we are feeling, we keep telling ourselves, not our own.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"Perhaps the most important aspect of children's emotional development is a growing awareness of their own emotional states and the ability to discern and interpret the emotions of others. The last half of the second year is a time when children start becoming aware of their own emotional states, characteristics, abilities, and potential for action; this phenomenon is called self-awareness... (coupled with strong narcissistic behaviours and traits - SV)...
This growing awareness of and ability to recall one's own emotional states leads to empathy, or the ability to appreciate the feelings and perceptions of others. Young children's dawning awareness of their own potential for action inspires them to try to direct (or otherwise affect) the behaviour of others...
...With age, children acquire the ability to understand the perspective, or point of view, of other people, a development that is closely linked with the empathic sharing of others' emotions...
One major factor underlying these changes is the child's increasing cognitive sophistication. For example, in order to feel the emotion of guilt, a child must appreciate the fact that he could have inhibited a particular action of his that violated a moral standard. The awareness that one can impose a restraint on one's own behaviour requires a certain level of cognitive maturation, and, therefore, the emotion of guilt cannot appear until that competence is attained."
That empathy is a REACTION to external stimuli that is fully contained within the empathor and then projected onto the empathee - is clearly demonstrated by "inborn empathy". It is the ability to exhibit empathy and altruistic behaviour in response to facial expressions. Newborns react this way to their mother's facial expression of sadness or distress.
This serves to prove that empathy has very little to do with the feelings, experiences or sensations of the other (the empathee). Surely, the infant has no idea what it is like to feel sad and definitely not what it is like for his mother to feel sad. In this case, it is a complex reflexive reaction. Later on, empathy is still rather reflexive, the result of conditioning.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica quotes fascinating research which dramatically proves the object-independent nature of empathy. Empathy is an internal reaction, an internal process, triggered by external cue provided by animate objects. It is communicated to the empathee-other by the empathor but the communication and the resulting agreement ("I know how you feel therefore we agree on how you feel") is rendered meaningless by the absence of a monovalent, unambiguous dictionary.
"An extensive series of studies indicated that positive emotion feelings enhance empathy and altruism. It was shown by the American psychologist Alice M. Isen that relatively small favours or bits of good luck (like finding money in a coin telephone or getting an unexpected gift) induced positive emotion in people and that such emotion regularly increased the subjects' inclination to sympathize or provide help.
Several studies have demonstrated that positive emotion facilitates creative problem solving. One of these studies showed that positive emotion enabled subjects to name more uses for common objects. Another showed that positive emotion enhanced creative problem solving by enabling subjects to see relations among objects (and other people - SV) that would otherwise go unnoticed. A number of studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of positive emotion on thinking, memory, and action in pre-school and older children."
If empathy increases with positive emotion (a result of good luck, for instance) - then it has little to do with its objects and a lot to do with the person in whom it is provoked.
ADDENDUM - Interview granted to the National Post, Toronto, Canada, July 2003
Q. How important is empathy to proper psychological functioning?
A. Empathy is more important socially than it is psychologically. The absence of empathy - for instance in the Narcissistic and Antisocial personality disorders - predisposes people to exploit and abuse others. Empathy is the bedrock of our sense of morality. Arguably, aggressive behavior is as inhibited by empathy at least as much as it is by anticipated punishment.
But the existence of empathy in a person is also a sign of self-awareness, a healthy identity, a well-regulated sense of self-worth, and self-love (in the positive sense). Its absence denotes emotional and cognitive immaturity, an inability to love, to truly relate to others, to respect their boundaries and accept their needs, feelings, hopes, fears, choices, and preferences as autonomous entities.
Q. How is empathy developed?
A. It may be innate. Even toddlers seem to empathize with the pain - or happiness - of others (such as their caregivers). Empathy increases as the child forms a self-concept (identity). The more aware the infant is of his or her emotional states, the more he explores his limitations and capabilities - the more prone he is to projecting this new found knowledge unto others. By attributing to people around him his new gained insights about himself, the child develop a moral sense and inhibits his anti-social impulses. The development of empathy is, therefore, a part of the process of socialization.
But, as the American psychologist Carl Rogers taught us, empathy is also learned and inculcated. We are coached to feel guilt and pain when we inflict suffering on another person. Empathy is an attempt to avoid our own self-imposed agony by projecting it onto another.
Q. Is there an increasing dearth of empathy in society today? Why do you think so?
A. The social institutions that reified, propagated and administered empathy have imploded. The nuclear family, the closely-knit extended clan, the village, the neighborhood, the Church- have all unraveled. Society is atomized and anomic. The resulting alienation fostered a wave of antisocial behavior, both criminal and "legitimate". The survival value of empathy is on the decline. It is far wiser to be cunning, to cut corners, to deceive, and to abuse - than to be empathic. Empathy has largely dropped from the contemporary curriculum of socialization.
In a desperate attempt to cope with these inexorable processes, behaviors predicated on a lack of empathy have been pathologized and "medicalized". The sad truth is that narcissistic or antisocial conduct is both normative and rational. No amount of "diagnosis", "treatment", and medication can hide or reverse this fact. Ours is a cultural malaise which permeates every single cell and strand of the social fabric.
Q. Is there any empirical evidence we can point to of a decline in empathy?
Empathy cannot be measured directly - but only through proxies such as criminality, terrorism, charity, violence, antisocial behavior, related mental health disorders, or abuse.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to separate the effects of deterrence from the effects of empathy.
If I don't batter my wife, torture animals, or steal - is it because I am empathetic or because I don't want to go to jail?
Rising litigiousness, zero tolerance, and skyrocketing rates of incarceration - as well as the ageing of the population - have sliced intimate partner violence and other forms of crime across the United States in the last decade. But this benevolent decline had nothing to do with increasing empathy.
The statistics are open to interpretation but it would be safe to say that the last century has been the most violent and least empathetic in human history. Wars and terrorism are on the rise, charity giving on the wane (measured as percentage of national wealth), welfare policies are being abolished, Darwininan models of capitalism are spreading. In the last two decades, mental health disorders were added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association whose hallmark is the lack of empathy. The violence is reflected in our popular culture: movies, video games, and the media.
Empathy - supposedly a spontaneous reaction to the plight of our fellow humans - is now channeled through self-interested and bloated non-government organizations or multilateral outfits. The vibrant world of private empathy has been replaced by faceless state largesse. Pity, mercy, the elation of giving are tax-deductible. It is a sorry sight.
url :http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Psychology/On-Empathy
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