Diana (who's a trained counsellor) has observed several times how a blog is the world - my world, seen in a particular way - my way). And for some time I have known that this perfectly parallels my professional world's notion of architecture and design, although we'd refer to my blog as a model of my real world, envisioned (as a view) from a particular viewpoint (my viewpoint).
And I now get it... when you look at my blog - from your viewpoint - your "need" from it is pretty likely to be something different than I might expect; because I am not standing with you, looking with you from your viewpoint. You "get" what I "give" you...
- If your viewpoint is "How's Ian today?" you get a barrage of facts and figures and impressions and reflections that I might think interesting - but all your looking for is "Ian's fine"...
- But if your viewpoint is "How does a cancer patient see the world?" then maybe that's closer to my viewpoint and you therefore can "see more" of what you want to see.
- And if your viewpoint is "How does a fellow patient cope?" then that's probably looking over my shoulder, and we're seeing the same view.
In architecture (and as I blog A LOT about in ianchartersde.blogspot.co.uk!), this "real world/model/viewpoint" insight is a hugely important idea, one that binds a professional community together in the way they corporately choose to think about the system or bridge or building they are designing...
...but in the real world it's called sympathy and empathy. Standing with someone, seeing and ultimately understanding the world through their eyes, in a way that allows one to walk or with them is empathy. Otherwise, if I choose to remain on my viewpoint and look across at you on yours, the best I can offer is sympathy.
So, from now on, if you feel I'm not "giving you want you need", I'd love to know. Because one of the wonderful things about this journey is the realization how close I am to you, even if we have such different viewpoints!
PS: my favourite search engine's response to "define empathy" includes a usage timeline... zero use to 1910, miniscule increase to 1950, and a huge increase from then to now!
I'm in the third one, fellow patient, empathy corner however that doesn't exactly describe why I'm here. I have found that the relationships made because of cancer specifically ...from the nurses, to the other bloggers, and to fellow armchair dwellers at the Aylesford, actually really matter..there's a depth to the amount I care that is different to other similarly recently met people who are not linked to me by cancer. I come and read regularly because I want to know you are ok and to see what you have to say because its likely to really hit similar spots with me so its very interesting. And I get a buzz at any good news for anyone, which always makes my day better!
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