Coup de foudre

Coup de foudre is not an all-you-can-eat buffet in the shape of an automobile. It is a French term that translates to "bolt of lightning." It is akin to falling in love at first sight. Perhaps it doesn't happen to everyone, so the term does not necessarily resonate with those who haven't experienced it. One can fall in love with many things: Other people, puppies, cute babies, books, music, oneself, cars, life, money, ideas, belief systems, and any number of inanimate or animate objects. It is an immediate and powerful attraction to something or someone that rises above the level of the ordinary. It hits like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of recognition, an intense emotional attachment. What does one do when a coup de foudre has struck? Another word that is seldom, if ever, used in everyday conversation is "compathy." We all know about sympathy, empathy, and compassion, but compathy is a state of mind that goes, I think, a step further. Sympathy is the condition of seeing someone suffer and our desire to comfort that person with words of encouragement or understanding. One can be sympathetic with another in complete silence or with just a touch or a hug. It lets the other person know that you acknowledge her pain and suffering and that you are wishing to extend a warm word, touch, or embrace to be present to that pain. Empathy is the condition of seeing someone suffer and actually resonating with that suffering because we "know" how that person feels, having experienced a similar situation. We completely understand what it is like to be in that painful state. We remember our own pain and acknowledge that in another person. It is an emotional knowing that lets us identify so thoroughly with another's discomfort. Compassion is often thought of as a generic term that applies to recognizing the suffering of all sentient beings and wishing to lessen that suffering in some manner through positive or right action. Compathy is the ability to simultaneously feel what the other person is feeling with the same intensity and character. This can occur even if we are miles apart from the suffering person and have no direct knowledge of what the other person is experiencing. It has often been reported in twins. One twin knows exactly what the other twin is going through though they are separated by vast distances. Mothers have reported this phenomenon (fathers also, I'm sure), sometimes in terms of "precognition," having a feeling that something dreadful has happened to a child before news of that event has reached the compath's awareness. Being a compath can be devastating to one's well-being. If a loved one, for example, is experiencing extreme stress or anxiety or depression, a compath will feel that same emotional overlay for no apparent reason having to do with the compath's own life. It can be debilitating and confusing to suddenly experience a flash of anxiety or sadness when there is no explicable reason for it. The compath is picking up this negative energy through some mechanism not readily understood. I'm not an expert in the area of psychoemotional states of mind, clearly. Writing about it is just a way to try to define it for myself. It is certainly true that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. I wait for the day when things of this nature are made clear, for now we all see through a glass darkly.