Given sufficient sympathy, I think we all can roughly grasp the quite plausible state of every individual person's having experienced some kind of loss.
What is loss? Loss to me is the qualitative or quantitative reduction of something of worth, whether objectively valued or not. Perhaps more excruciatingly, in the case of the latter.
And therein lies an interesting, if ironic dynamic. Loss is something, strangely enough, universally prevalent, and yet exceedingly individualistic, so much so that we have but futile claims to true understanding of the quality or extent of loss (and suffering, which is the reaction of the individual to loss) each individual experiences. For who can say that he has known the desolate pain of a man whose children starve? Or the man whose relative is treated cruelly or shamefully? And by man I of course mean woman, as well. And how then can we, who know so little of loss, of suffering, make claims to what is good and what is right and what is proper?
But I do not mean to pontificate. Rather I think that loss has been my master, and I quite honour the bitter things it has taught me. In a way I think one of the cooler (or better) things about me is that I have, I think, a strong sense of what loss is to someone else. Put another way, I think that my sympathy is genuine and, as far as it can be, helpful. But nevermind that. Perhaps I am a long way yet from any sort of related aspirations.
But still I would conclude by saying that loss has taught me that I could never wish (much less visit) loss on someone else. Of some of the kinds of loss I have been given, I could never wish them on someone else. This is not to be dramatic. Rather I think that loss teaches ultimately no lesson in virtue or health that cannot be better taught by some other more benign means. On the contrary, loss hardens and it makes cynical people, vulnerable, good hearted people. I think that loss should not be necessary. But that is all by the by. I just have this perhaps naive, perhaps foolishly serendipitous belief that people, given sufficient assurance, can be so much better than as they are, burdened with loss and all that.
I just could not wish the losses I've known on anyone else. Do you get what I mean? It makes no sense to do otherwise. It's Kantian in a way, ethical universality. What good could it do to know the loss of another, after all? I should not think it only for the sake of empathy. And so what is the point of all this BS in this world? I don't know, honestly. Loss as a concept is meaningless in a way worse than loss itself. And so I think we live in this terrible paradigm, and yet at the same time, we who have plenty are often so petty, so mean, so self-centred, so ignorant. It's unbelievable, right. We're such poor representatives of our species.
Oh well.
