8.08 GRE - Great Books - Essays of Michel de Montaigne - (found in blue pencil cursive type)

"And yet pity is reputed a vice amongst the stoics, who will that we succor the afflicted, but not that we should be so affected with their sufferings as to suffer with them." - Michel de Montaigne

elena greco in the new inquiry

Sometimes it is inherent, I'm something of an empath, to "suffer with them." But when them is foreign, I agree with "the stoics," it's impossible to synchronize experiences, and grow a tomato whose plant cell makeup is exactly the same as "the afflicted," it's empathic to feel it, to open up a dark viscous liquid and drink the wines of other's secretions, however, trauma begets suffering, and in trauma are multiple variables, "to suffer with them" would be ignorant, to validate their sufferings, is not to suffer with them, or for them (as empath's may sometimes do) it's to allow them space, a support, a tithe, sans oppression, sans making someone small, because if one is 'to suffer with them' isn't that to also equalize? appreciation is not the same color. his sufferings will always yield a different, usually better response, than her sufferings. to suffer with her, with him, is wrong, at least, if you're suffering, validate that she is, accept that you have dealt with similar trauma, share it if she asks, but Montaigne is a man, and this thought must have never come to him. Isn't it all to some extent voyeurism, albeit innocent.