There is a skill of how to access information from your emotions.
Most people don’t know how.
They literally cannot read their feelings, in the same way that illiterates cannot read words.
Intellectuals are often illiterate *plus* deny it’s possible to learn to... See more
You’re allowed to figure out what emotions you’re feeling in broadly the same way you would with anyone else, which is by paying attention to what you’re actually doing. If you’re behaving in an angry way, maybe you’re actually angry.
Let’s say someone has both a high-functioning theory of mind and an overflowing well of compassion. What then? Well, this is what Hoffman calls “empathic over-arousal.” A person will feel so worn down by the intensity of other people’s emotions that it wears them down — it turns their distress into my actual distress. This might not seem like a bad... See more