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Compassion 2/7/2012 10:10:54 PM
I was standing at my post at a Costco when by happenstance, I saw a child with tear in his eye sitting on the cart. He was not whimpering. He was not even throwing a fit. Deep within me, I would wish him well and that was that. That was the extent to how I show compassion for I cannot just rush to the child and ask why. He was about two years old. But near him was his sister (I presumed.) I assumed that she was four or five years old. She was rubbing the back of his brother and with sad eyes was trying to console him.
I have seen this phenomenon before but too far and in between. Normally, I would see children fighting and hitting each other. It was the Cain and Abel effect of growing up. Sometimes, I would see children ask why a child was crying and that was it. Then like anything else, the children will revert to playing and ignore the plight of the crying child. It was more out of curiosity than compassion.
But this girl had sad eyes looking at his brother and rubbing his back. There was no questioning or anything exchanged between them. There was just this silent understanding of a girl for his brother.
I wonder at what age we develop compassion. To have compassion at a very young age is indeed commendable. It showed a certain sense of maturity for experience would tell us to be compassionate. Or, was it by instinct that we have and exhibit compassion? Grown men and women will have that capacity, but this was developed because experience tells them so. When you have seen so much pain and suffering, you tend to be compassionate. Wars and conflicts elicit compassion. Even simple cruelty calls forth a sympathetic consciousness that wanted to alleviate not cruelty in itself but the effects of experiencing cruelty.
To this very young girl, she was more mature than her age would suggest. She certainly had this instinct. But more so, by the way she exhibited herself, she was more mature than her age would suggest. It is as if she had the ages behind her.
I certainly admired this young girl. I wished that I had more of compassion than the superficial demonstration of compassion. (For men can feign compassion. Men can show compassion but not in its most intrinsically basic element.) Compassion does not give me any advantage. It is the actual giving without the expectation of receiving that defines true compassion.
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