Empathy... yes, that is a great thing. It's one of the few good qualities I've been able to develop. Still haven't perfected it, but at least I am pointed in the wrong direction...

Sympathy, on the other hand, is what you'll find more of in the world. I view it as the evil twin of empathy. Empathy is totally understanding how someone feels, but sympathy is trying to assimilate the feeling from the one who is suffering. Sympathy feeds the ego. Another person's suffering can not be taken or copied to become your own suffering - that would fall into the category of coveting. Each person's suffering is unique, even if the same event causes their sufferings, total sympathy is not even possible.... it is a path to the dark side.


Cooperation instead of competition. Hell yeah!

But what's to stop people from saying "I bet I can cooperate better than YOU can!" Competitive drive will weed it's way into any situation.... that damn instinctive survival of the fittest crap.... the internal competition between higher and lower cognitive brain functions. Maybe we should feed our ego's equally with positive cooperative input to force the good frontal lobe to override the desire for competition? We're still a stone's throw away from living in caves, we gotta do something to ensure the dominiance of our higher brain or else we'll be fighting forever with each other.