“The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and indignation, the glow of moral approbation if they do not lead to immediate fruits, grow less and less vivid every time they occur, till at length the mind grows morbidly callous.” ~ inspired by Anna L. Barbauld

While closely related to the addiction to negativity, callousness is by far the greater and more insidious evil.

Callousness, you see, is one’s addiction to not caring enough to even judge another unfairly … Indeed, callousness is one’s addiction to choosing to — at least in that moment — not Care at all.

“But that doesn’t relate to me”, you exclaim. “I care deeply about many things.” No worries, my Friends, as I have no doubt whatsoever that the latter is true. And yet, callousness is not a black-or-white, either-or proposition. Like all other addictions, such an affliction is one of degree.

Yes, we care for our friends when we are feeling strong or when it is convenient, and yet what of the times when we are “too tired” or “too busy” or “too sick”?

Yes, we care for our neighborhood, and yet how often actively do something to bolster its Beauty?

Yes, we know that is Right to be kind to the downtrodden, and yet how often do we reach out a caring hand to the poor and the homeless in our own communities?

Again, this is not some either-or judgment. It’s not like we are either 100% callous or we are 100% not. Rather, the degree to which we reach out and openly Care for others (ALL others, in ALL situations) is the degree to which we are Compassionate Beings …

and the degree to which we do not, we are not.

Indeed, the degree to which we are not, we are suffering –- at least partially — from an addiction to callousness.

RECOGNIZING your own ADDICTION to CALLOUSNESS

Please consider honestly answering the following questions:

*Do you slow down to stare numbly at traffic accidents as you drive by them?

*Do you watch tragedies on the nightly news without feeling or showing any emotion?

*Do you feel good when hearing of the downfall of a competitor?

*Do you rejoice when a star player on a rival sports team gets injured or plays extremely poorly?

*Do you celebrate when a politician from a rival party is publicly humiliated?

*Do you say “I Love You” to your partner in order to hear it said in return?

*Do you do good deeds for others because you feel obligated to do so?

*Do you resent or have envy for others who are successful or happy or “in love”?

*Do you feel smarter than some of your friends and associates?

*Do you feel more successful than others in your neighborhood?

*Do you attribute selfish motives to the actions of others (especially your enemies)?

*Do you react melodramatically to challenge or crisis?

*Do you judge the Truth of others’ statements as either “wrong” or “right”?

*Do you feel that criminals should be “fairly punished”, and does it make you happy to learn they have received those “just rewards”?

*Do you feel bitter about things that have happened to you in the past?

*Do you have a pessimistic (a.k.a. “realistic”) opinion about the future?

*Do you avoid making eye-contact with or smiling at strangers?

*Do you pass by homeless people &/or beggars without acknowledging them?

*Do you laugh or smile while listening to someone gossip about another person?

*Do you only “half-listen” when another is sharing their problems with you?

*Do you feel good when your country’s military is reported to have “won a battle” or “neutralized (i.e. killed) an enemy combatant”?

*Do you feel thankful that you and those who believe like you are going to “make it to Heaven” after you die, even though that means that millions of others on the planet will not?

*Do you laugh when you see someone trip or stumble or otherwise embarrass themselves?

If you answered affirmatively to any of these questions, it does not make you a person who is “bad” or “mean” or “cold”. And yet, the degree to which you answered “Yes” to any of these questions is indeed the degree to which callousness is holding you back from living a life of Power and Meaning and Joy.

The SOURCE of the ADDICTION

Almost all of us have experienced feelings of pleasure (or at the very least disinterest) when hearing about somebody else’s misfortune.

There is no need to get down on ourselves for the depths of Caring we refuse to feel or the acts of Kindness we refuse to engage. After all, in a modern society inundated with tragedy-driven mass media and fear-driven economics, callousness has become the norm. It is extremely difficult to have the courage to have empathy for the thousands of tragedies we witness on TV each day (solution: turn off the TV – not your empathy), and it is extremely difficult to reach out to the downtrodden in our own communities when we are told over & over again to be very worried about our own family’s survival.

The New York Times recently cited a number of scientific studies related to “schadenfreude” (shah-din-froy-de), a German psychological phenomenon defined loosely as “delighting in the misfortune of others” –- a form of extreme callousness. Two of the reasons it cited for this quite-common and quite-dramatic lack of empathy included “social comparison” (the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to both ourselves & others) and “cultural competitiveness” (where individuals with lower self-esteem feel threatened by those they see as successful, and as such feel elated when those “rivals” falter in any way).

In essence, when we choose to see life as a struggle as opposed to a journey, we tend to see others as aggressive competitors as opposed to mutual caregivers.

And when our primary purpose in life is more to survive in personal comfort than to serve others in pain, those of us who do not feel good about ourselves will do almost anything to make ourselves feel better – including celebrating the suffering of another.

The CONSEQUENCES of CALLOUSNESS

Despite the popular notion that refusing to deeply Care for others is “no big deal”, callousness is no trivial matter. To the contrary, the consequences of withholding our empathy for others are as powerful as they are immense.

In fact, if left unchecked, callousness steadily destroys the very fabric of our lives – ultimately making our pleasures meaningless, our successes brittle and our joys hollow.

*CALLOUSNESS ENTRENCHES our ENEMIES
Choosing to rejoice in the downfalls and discomforts of those not in “our herd” only ensures that those people will remain our enemies – and that they will almost assuredly rejoice in our own future tragedies as well. The solution for Peace in our lives is NOT the domination of all those who oppose us, but rather rests solely in the persistent reaching out to those enemies with Compassion – and thereby transforming them into allies.

*CALLOUSNESS DESTROYS our INTIMACY
The more we withhold our Kindness from strangers and enemies, the more our base-level of empathy withers and crumbles. The less we choose to Care for strangers — and even our enemies, the more we ultimately distance ourselves from our own Loved Ones as well.

*CALLOUSNESS ENGENDERS our “PSEUDO-SOCIOPATHY”
A sociopath is someone who refuses to show empathy for others, who has poor control over selfish impulses, and who exhibits behaviors that cause others pain. Quite obviously, while choosing callousness does not make one a sociopath, it certainly satisfies all three of these criteria – and starts one down a Life-Path that ultimately causes immense suffering for self & others. We are not here to “be happy”, my Friends … We are here to ease the sadness of those nearby. And we cannot do so with hollow, “nice” gestures performed from a sense of manipulation or obligation. Rather, we must simply set our callousness aside, and have the courage to Care.

*CALLOUSNESS INFLICTS our “KARMIC SPLASHBACK”
Each of us has the supra-conscious yearning to Care for others as powerfully as possible in the limited time we have in this lifetime. And each of us is fully Aware on that supra-conscious level (the level of perception where our conscience resides) the degree to which we have succeeded in bringing others Peace, or failed by causing them pain – even if only by callously ignoring their suffering. Interestingly enough, there is a psychological mechanism within us that “leads” us to experience the very pain that we directly or indirectly cause others. As such, for every moment we choose to emotionally turn away from a brother or a sister in need, we will gravitate ourselves towards future interactions in which we will experience a similar level of abandonment. This “karmic splashback” is what allows us to ultimately come to know real Compassion, and ultimately abandon our callousness in favor of selfless caring. After all, we can only truly have empathy for others who are suffering pains similar to those we ourselves have already experienced.

*CALLOUSNESS PROVOKES our RESIGNATION
When our ego-minds repeatedly focus upon the failures of others (sometimes with apathy, and sometimes with joy), they also subconsciously inspire us to abandon our own quests for Self-Awakening. Others are seen to persistently fail and suffer, which then solidifies our own belief that a life of Peace & Joy is simply not possible – thereby justifying a subsequent choice to simply give up the quest for the same altogether. On the other hand, if we choose to have the courage to Care for those who are “down & out”, we will immediately feel the Purpose in that Caring – and this whether those others eventually use our Kindness to help them transcend their failures or not. Caring becomes the end AND the means to that end – the two become one; just as we become one with those for whom we choose to Care. Indeed, when dealing with the fears of the ego-mind (which is the mastermind behind every one of our addictions), it is only the person who persists (and persists, and persists) in showing compassionate Kindness who will ultimately rise above the darkness of despondency — and ascend back into the levity of the Light.

In CONCLUSION, just because it is indeed extremely challenging to show Compassion to our enemies, it doesn’t make it Right to avoid doing so. And just because it is very difficult to feel a profound empathy for strangers, doesn’t make it impossible to bravely exhibit the same.

Yes, we are “herd animals” … and yes, we are biologically programmed to protect the members of our own “herd” while rejecting (or callously ignoring) the members of others.

And yet, my Friends, we are soooooo much more than mere “intelligent animals”.

Indeed, we are HUMAN(e) …

… and we can allWays choose to act accordingly!

“Your conscience is like the nerve endings in your fingertips. Its sensitivity to external stimuli can be damaged by the buildup of calluses or even wounded so badly as to be virtually impervious to any feeling.” ~ John Macarthur

“A lack of Love is a degree of callousness … We do not Love the other because we do not comprehend them, or rather, we do not comprehend them because we do not choose to Love them.” ~ inspired by Rabindranath Tagore