20 Questions Tuesday: 224 - Empathy

This week has had a hurricane hit a few major cities on the eastern seaboard… There is flooding everywhere, and as many people say, “Our hearts go out to those people.”  That, my friends, is called “Empathy.”  Ergo today’s topic of empathy.  

Thanks this week go to Chris Ring, Brett Wood, Steev, and some other guy… Ton Tonners represent!  On to the questions!

1.  Empathy is very under used due to people just using sympathy (perhaps incorrectly?) in most cases do you think the word will die out from our vocabulary or at least our spoken vocabulary?
Empathy is a nuanced word.  I do not think that it will drop from modern vernacular because of the nuanced meaning.  Empathy is something different than sympathy.  Empathy is feeling like, while Sympathy is feeling for.

2.  To whom do you frequently empathize?
My kids, mainly because they do not know how to have feelings correctly, and need me to model correct emotions for them.  For example, I show them how to assimilate the emotion of apathy when they encounter anything… anything at all.

3.  Do you empathize or sympathize when you aerobicize?
You have a false question because you are assuming my tubby self aerobicizes.  

4.  What % of Americans do you think Mitt Romney can empathize with?
Not many, it is not as cliche but I would say prolly the top 3%, and he has to stretch his faculties to do that.

5.  What % of Americans do you think The President can empathize with?
I would say most, but there are portions of the country he can’t.  I would say about 70% or so.

6.  Any links between telepathy and empathy?
There are potentially some.  There is the possibility that to be truly telepathic one must understand how someone feels at their core in response to different situations.

7.  How much empathy do you think you have?
I think I can be fairly empathetic, but I typically hold that shit at bay.  The world is a hurting place that can be cold and cruel, and I need to survive.  So, if I allow myself to be empathetic only on rare and uncontrolled occasions.

8.  Do we need more empathy in the world or less?
We need more empathy, definitely.   

9.  What types of people in the world would you say lack empathy?
Entitled pricks and psychopaths.

10.  Mother Teresa, now she had a boat load of empathy am I right?
Shit tons.. the woman was made of empathy and water.  She was a bag of empathetic bones and water.

11.  Empathy is an instant messaging (IM) and voice over IP (VoIP) client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM protocols. It was developed by Guillaume Desmottes and Xavier Claessens, who are both Frenchmen. What do you call a quarter Pounder with cheese in France?
Le Royal Cheese… I would think it would be Le Grand Burger avec Fromage… mmmmm Le Grand Burger…. avec les cornichons et les oignons miniscules… mmmmmmm

12. Empathy is a 1962 album by jazz musicians Bill Evans and Shelly Manne. The album had six tracks and absolutely none of the songs were written by either one of these yahoos. How is that any different than painting a copy of the Mona Lisa and then selling it as your own?
Well, the fact that you are aware that the aforementioned jazz musicians did not write the music means that there is some kind of attribution indicating who the actual composers for the pieces are.  The analogy would be if someone painted the Mona Lisa and tried to sell it as “The Mona Lisa, after da Vinci.”

13. Linguistic empathy is the phenomenon where the speaker shows sympathy or point of view through sentence structure. There are a lot of structures in Washington where people speak their points of view. I’m not sure who is the current Speaker of the House is. I wouldn’t mind having some BOSE speakers for my house. Do you think they’re overpriced?
I do think that BOSE speakers are overpriced, but I am not quite an audiophile.  I do not find offense at relatively bad sound system.  If you have a really good ear and find minor tonal variation to be offensive… there are better equipment than BOSE that can be purchased with better audiophonic capabilities.  heh… audiophonic… never thought I would use the word audiophonic.

14.  The Gashlycrumb Tinies is an abecedarian book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths in rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author’s distinctive black and white illustrations. What are the names that would accompany the letters in “empathy”?
Emily, Mike, Penelope, Angmar the Mighty, Ted, Harold, Yevginey

15. Would the fact that I find the previous question ironically hilarious make me unempathetic?
Well, not that by itself… It is kind of weaksauce as far as making someone unempathetic by itself. There is a whole host of other reasons for people to consider you unempathetic.

16.  Counselor Troi in STNG was an empath… was her “power” completely useless, or what?
Good lord!  She could always tell that Riker was horny and that “Something is uncomfortable” or “They feel confused.”  “I sense unease…” Damn half Betazoids and their GeeDee useless empathy.

17.  Empathy shmempathy, that’s what I say.
Damn straight, you know it.  Empathy can suck it.

18.  Empathetic sounds a bunch like pathetic… why is that?
Well, empathetic is a combination of the words “empty” and “pathetic,” so you can draw your own conclusions there… pathetic empty losers.

19. Come up with a definition of Impathetic… Do it!
The state of being an ineffective imp.  An Imp who is incapable of causing mishief and mayhem.  At best they can produce a sense of ennui.

20.  If you find someone who is empathetic, can you make that empathetical person take on your uncomfortable feelings and then not have to deal with those encumbering things yourself?
I sure as hell hope so, what is the point of having empathetic “friends?”

To recap:
It has gotten cold here
Good luck East Coast peoples and Great Lakes peoples
Get some power
Halloween is tomorrow
I imagine you were expecting this to be a Halloween post
I don’t roll like that
I come at you from a different direction
Boom!
That’s how I do that
The kids are being Star Wars the Clone Wars characters and a Disney princess as a fairly (or a unicorn {the girl is fickle})
I have a nasty head ache
Advil will be be taken soonlike
That is about all I have from here
Have a safe and great weekend everyone