The Light in Our Sky Series #6

A quote from Walt Whitman

The Light in Our Sky

Volume #6

April 17th, 2025

“Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person…” Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

ZAN: First of all, I’ve always loved the image of agony being a “change of garments.” Isn’t that a nice way to think of feelings in general? Something we put on and wear for a while before our mood shifts and we change into a new feeling… The second part of this quote reminds me of our discussion on empathy—witnessing someone’s pain so entirely as to feel it yourself. As you always said to me when I was in the midst of some health battle or another: “If I could take it, I would.” A beautiful, heartfelt sentiment that let me know you understood I was suffering. I feel like I often don the lives of the people I see, especially when traveling—I love to imagine I’m putting myself in someone else’s life for a while. During my recent trip to Mexico, I was looking out the bus window and I saw a group of young women sitting together on the guardrail by the highway on the outskirts of San Miguel de Allende. There was something about the way they sat, chatting casually while traffic raced by, that sucked me into their world (or at least my interpretation of their world) for a while. What were they talking about? What kinds of worries were swimming around in their heads? Where had they come from and where were they going? I’ll never know…

PA: I do the same, Zan. I think it’s a mix of the vivid imagination of a writer and a deep empathy—like what Whitman is referring to above. In order to create a character in fiction, or do justice to a person in almost any non-fiction account, you have to have a good measure of the quality you describe: putting yourself as completely as possible into someone else’s life. But clearly it’s not only about writing. I absolutely believe that the cause of most of the world’s trouble is not trying—or not trying hard enough—to, as he puts it, ‘become the wounded person.’ I’m glad we chose empathy for one of our discussions because, more and more as events evolve here in the U.S., I feel that empathy is the defining characteristic of the human soul. Without empathy, you can’t be a good parent, friend, sibling, partner, writer, citizen, or leader. I really think it’s that simple.

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