Empathy comes from…

Shared feeling
Shared experience
Mirror neurons firing amok
Design, chance or evolution

All of the above
None of the above

Whatever the source
It is necessary

To my existence
To my experience of the world
Getting it
Giving it

A life without empathy

Would be colorless
Tasteless
Washed in gray and empty
Of life

But if you can’t give it
And you can’t accept it

How would you know what’s missing
A sense you’ve never had

I think of empathy as a vine
Tenacious
Entwined in all aspects of life
Always growing back if it is cut down

But I see
For others
How they move through the world

Maybe that isn’t true
Not for everyone

How can a seed be planted
But how
                can it not already exist

Perhaps its buried very deep
Out of sight out of mind
Requiring water
Light
Air
Belief
To grow

Empathy is necessary to our existence
The source may be mysterious
Debated

But without it
How can we see the humanity of others
How can we see the humanity
Of ourselves