On empathy

Occasionally there are moments when you hear someone say something, or act a certain way, and you immediately feel a powerful affiliation to them. You see yourself performing the same actions, or feeling the same emotions, or maybe you just recognise their behaviour in someone you know. A strange feeling.

And this evening, I have had this twice. From unlikely sources, I must confess. The first being the trailer for the new Alfie movie with Jude Law in.


The part of the trailer which got me can be no more than two seconds. It's not an essential part; in fact it is just a single action. Jude Law is at a pool table, pool cue in hand, saying how just when you have finally fallen for a woman, they shatter your heart, when he kind of does a mock swooning action. He turns a bit towards the camera, with his hand on his heart, and sort of twists around, sagging at the knees, as though he was falling and having his heart shattered, all the time with a cheeky grin on his face. I have no idea why the action caught my attention, or why I felt such a rush of feeling for that particular movement, but something about it just punched me in the stomach. There must be something in that action; something that reminds me of someone, or of an event, or perhaps of neither of those things, but just of how I would like someone to look. It's hard to explain. And suddenly, I found myself madly in love - not with Jude Law, but with whatever his action reminds me of, or symbolises. But I can't remember what that is. And so the epiphany is incomplete.

And the next moment of empathy? Watching the first ever episode of Six Feet Under, and remembering how dark it is, I suddenly realised - I am Brenda. Something about her was familiar from the beginning, but when she is standing with Nate after his father's funeral, explaining why she's just given Nate her phone number, we suddenly became one person. Everything about her was, and is, me entirely. So now I face the prospect of having to watch the remaining episodes, and the second and third series when they are available, to find out how I end up.... and it scares me.