The Death and Rebirth of Compassion

When I was five years old, I carried an injured rat home, wanting to help her. I don't recall what my mom did, but I'm guessing it wasn't a happy ending. But I do remember my mother hugging me when I cried over the distress of animals.

When I was seven years old, I took part in our annual family gathering to butcher chickens on my grandparents' farm. I held my best friend, handed him to my grandfather and watched my feathered friend's head fall to the ground in a pile of others from the gruesome chopping block. One last blink. Looking at me. Asking "Why?" I held him upside-down as instructed and felt him turn cold as his blood drained at my feet.

At supper that evening, my seven-year-old self offered a remembrance of my friend as a prayer. I talked about how he would run to me when he was just a little chick. How he liked to snuggle in my lap. How he would purr as he slept. How he looked to me for protection. How I betrayed his trust. And how I felt betrayed by those I loved, those I thought would protect me. Everyone at the table went vegetarian... for a few hours.

In my teen years I lived and worked on factory farms and took part in the horrors that I was told were just a part of life. And I am broken because of it. Utterly broken. I left the family farm and farm labor behind when I became vegan. I made a conscious decision to accept the pain of caring, to feel, and to try my best to try to reduce the suffering in the world. Most people, obviously, don't make that choice.

Watch a six-month-old baby's face crumple in distress when they hear another infant crying. See a toddler, without hesitation, offer their beloved teddy bear to comfort a friend's tears. These moments reveal something profound about our nature – a wellspring of compassion that flows freely in our earliest years.

Now, as our planet teeters on the edge of environmental and societal breakdown, I find myself returning to a question that haunts me: How do we journey from these naturally empathetic children to adults who often struggle to access that same wellspring of caring?

The transformation is both subtle and devastating, shaped by the invisible hands of family expectations, cultural traditions, and societal pressures.

Our Original Heart

That spontaneous care we witness in children isn't something they've been taught – it emerges naturally, as essential to human development as learning to walk. When an infant responds to another's distress, we're witnessing our species' true inheritance. Compassion appears to be our default state, our original face before the world began its work upon us.

This makes beautiful evolutionary sense. Yes, competition and individual strength played roles in our survival, but human communities flourished primarily through our extraordinary capacity for cooperation and care. Our ancestors survived brutal winters and unpredictable migrations because they carried each other's children, shared limited food, and tended to their wounded. Empathy wasn't a luxury they couldn't afford – it was the invisible thread that held the social fabric together.

When the Heart Begins to Close

Something happens as we grow. It starts with small moments – a father telling his son to "toughen up" when he cries, a teacher praising the student who outperforms her peers while ignoring those who excel at helping others learn. The classroom becomes the training ground where children absorb the lesson that individual achievement matters more than collective wellbeing.

The child who shares answers might be labeled a cheater. The one who finishes their work and then helps a struggling classmate might be told to "focus on getting ahead." Each of these moments places a small stone on the heart, gradually building a wall between us and our natural capacity for connection.

By the time we enter the workplace, the messaging intensifies. I've watched compassionate colleagues passed over for promotion because they weren't "tough enough" to make difficult decisions. Working in human resources, I had the responsibility to cut a $200,000 bonus check for our CEO the same day I had to lay off 40 employees to cut costs. The check was a reward for the "tough decisions" he had to make. I've seen kind, ethical people gradually transform, learning to justify laying off dedicated workers to improve quarterly profits. The system doesn't just reward this hardening – it requires it.

The Heartbreak of Adolescence

The teenage years bring a unique kind of pain. I remember the overwhelming feeling as a seventeen-year-old, suddenly able to understand the vast suffering in the world while simultaneously being told to focus on college applications and career planning. How do you reconcile your awakening awareness of climate collapse, animal suffering, and human exploitation with the persistent message to "focus on your future"?

For many teenagers, this creates a soul-deep fracture. They stand at the edge of two worlds – the authentic emotional response that says "this matters deeply" and the adult world that says "don't be so sensitive." The pain manifests in depression, anxiety, rebellion, or for many, a slow numbing to suffering that allows them to function in a system they can neither escape nor transform.

The Different Paths We Take

As we emerge from adolescence, we typically find three paths forward. I've walked parts of each in my own life, and perhaps you have too.

The most common path involves learning to look away. Not dramatically or all at once, but in small, daily acts of not seeing. We develop intricate systems of justification – "That's just how the world works" or "I'm just one person, what can I do?" We compartmentalize our awareness, focusing on our immediate circle while letting the wider suffering fade to background noise. This isn't weakness or moral failure – it's a human response to overwhelming pain.

The second path leads to a painful hyper-awareness that can become paralyzing. Those who walk this road maintain their sensitivity but find themselves drowning in it. Like Dostoevsky's Underground Man, they see too clearly into the darkness of human nature and society's contradictions. The weight of this awareness often leads to bitterness, despair, or a cynicism that masquerades as wisdom but ultimately prevents meaningful action.

The third path, walked by people like Thich Nhat Hanh, shows another possibility. These rare individuals somehow maintain their awareness of suffering while finding joy and purpose in response to it. Their compassion extends beyond human boundaries to embrace all living beings. They carry the weight of knowing without being crushed by it, transforming awareness into action with a strange alchemy that most of us can only glimpse momentarily. This is the path I attempt to follow.

Feeling Our Way Through Collapse

As our climate destabilizes and societal systems fray, the very mechanisms that helped us tune out suffering now threaten our ability to respond appropriately. The emotional defenses that once seemed adaptive now leave us vulnerable in new ways. We desperately need the feedback signals of grief, fear, and love to guide us through the narrowing future.

Ironically, those who maintained their sensitivity – often at great personal cost – may be better equipped for the world we're entering. The ability to feel deeply, to maintain connection in the face of suffering, becomes not a liability but essential wisdom for navigating a world in decline.

The Possibility of Quantum Empathy

I've begun to imagine a different way of holding our sensitivity – not as individual burden but as collective awakening. What if the pain we feel at others' suffering isn't something to overcome or manage, but a guide toward right action? What if the very sensitivity that made life difficult in a competitive society becomes our compass through collapse?

This transformation requires experiencing our interconnectedness not just intellectually but viscerally. When I truly feel how my life intertwines with yours, with the birds outside my window, with the forests being cleared for cattle ranching – the boundaries around my compassion naturally dissolve. The suffering I witness becomes not something separate from me but something flowing through the same web that holds us all.

Finding a Way Forward

As we face planetary hospice, the question of maintaining compassion without being crushed by awareness becomes urgent. How do we stay open-hearted in a world of mounting losses?

The path lies not in feeling less, but in developing the capacity to feel deeply while staying engaged in meaningful action. I think of my friend who worked in wildlife rehabilitation. She held dying animals with tenderness, celebrates the ones who recover, and somehow maintained her capacity for joy and presence through it all. She didn't deny the grief or protect herself from it – she moved with it, letting it inform her work without defining her existence.

Creating Inner Sanctuary

Many of us find ourselves profoundly alone as social bonds fray and communities dissolve. The suggestion to "build communities" or "find support groups" can feel not just unhelpful but almost cruel when deep introversion or circumstance has left us without traditional support networks.

For many - perhaps even most in our increasingly atomized world - the first step in reconnecting with innate compassion isn't outward but inward. Before we can connect authentically with others, we need to create that "safe space" within ourselves - a personal sanctuary where we can experience our own feelings without judgment.

This inner work isn't self-indulgent; it's foundational. It begins with small acts of self-compassion - noticing when we silence our own emotions, when we tell ourselves to "toughen up" or "get over it." It involves giving ourselves permission to feel deeply again, even when those feelings include grief, rage, or despair at the state of our world.

Simple practices can help create this inner sanctuary. A daily journal where you witness your own thoughts without judgment. Mindfulness meditation that allows emotions to arise and pass without attachment or aversion. Time spent in nature, where many find it easier to drop the psychological armor required in human society.

The digital world, for all its flaws, offers pathways for connection that don't require the immediate vulnerability of in-person interaction. Online forums where people share similar concerns about our planetary predicament can provide a transitional space - a way to express and explore feelings with some measure of safety before attempting more direct connections.

Books and other art forms can serve as bridges too - not just as intellectual exercises but as emotional companions. Reading someone else's honest account of struggling with similar feelings can break through isolation in profound ways. We realize we aren't alone in our experience, even when physically solitary.

This internal work gradually builds the resilience needed to risk small connections with others. Not broad communities necessarily, but perhaps one conversation, one authentic exchange at a time. The compassion we cultivate for ourselves naturally begins to extend outward, sometimes in ways so subtle we hardly notice the shift.

Community as Crucible for Compassion

We need each other in this reawakening. Alone, the pain of awareness can be overwhelming. Together, we can hold space for grief while reminding each other of beauty and possibility. Whether in formal support groups, informal gatherings, or online communities, we need places where sensitivity is recognized as strength rather than weakness.

The collapse of our industrial civilization, devastating as it is, creates openings for reconnection. As systems of hyperindividualism falter, people naturally turn toward each other. In disaster zones, we often see spontaneous communities form, strangers helping strangers, sharing resources and care in ways that seemed impossible in "normal" times.

Personal Practices in Turbulent Times

Even for those who feel isolated, personal practices can nurture compassion. When I chose veganism years ago, I experienced a profound shift – once I expanded my circle of consideration to include farm animals, other boundaries around my compassion began dissolving as well. My concern naturally extended to wildlife, ecosystems, and future generations. Yep, even humans.

Each purchase becomes an opportunity for mindfulness and connection. Understanding how my clothes, food, and technology connect me to countless others – workers in distant factories, communities affected by mining, ecosystems disrupted by agriculture – transforms daily choices into acts of relationship.

I've found that deliberately seeking beauty in a damaged world sustains my capacity to care. The resilience of urban wildlife, wildflowers pushing through concrete, the dignity of people helping each other in difficult circumstances – noticing these moments nourishes something essential within me.

Small kindnesses matter more than we realize – leaving water for wildlife during heat waves, helping an elderly neighbor with groceries, truly listening to someone's struggles. These actions shape our consciousness and remind us who we truly are beneath the layers of protection we've built.

Seeds of Possibility

Every person who maintains or reawakens their compassion becomes a seed of possibility in a hardening world. They demonstrate that different ways of being in relationship with each other and the planet remain possible, even – perhaps especially – in times of decline.

The path forward isn't about grand gestures but about remembering our original nature as beings capable of deep care and connection. In doing so, we might discover that what we thought was protecting us was actually diminishing us, and that true resilience comes not from feeling less, but from feeling more fully while maintaining the capacity for wise action.

As we navigate the great unraveling of the world we've known, this reawakening of compassion may be our most important task. The future will require not just practical skills but the ability to maintain our humanity in the face of loss and change. The sensitivity we were taught to suppress might become the very quality that helps us create meaning and connection in a world forever altered.