We all are wired differently and we may just not have certain faculties. Some people’s minds may be so geared as to have low emotional awareness of what others are feeling and how their own actions are impacting others’ feelings. Though such a low capacity for sensitivity is an undesirable state of affairs, it is often excusable. Why? Because such people are not intentionally insensitive; due to their low capacity for sensitivity, they might be more accurately referred to as non-sensitive rather than insensitive. Over time, those around such non-sensitive people recognize their heart is in the right place, even if their words often go all over the place.
Far different from – and far less excusable than – such low capacity for sensitivity is low regard for sensitivity. Those with such low regard deride sensitivity as sentimentality. Worse still, they deride those who strive for sensitivity as spineless compromisers who are more concerned about pleasing others than about speaking the truth. Worst of all, they parade their apathy toward sensitivity — or even their deliberate insensitivity in using provocative words — as proof of their courage to speak the unvarnished truth.
What’s wrong with their low regard for sensitivity? Three main things. They don’t realize that sensitivity is a strength arising from an acute emotional sensor, whereas sentimentality is a weakness arising from a fixation on emotions at the cost of everything else. They don’t appreciate that the sensitive are not spineless, but are mindful: mindful that their words don’t become obstacles for those seeking the truth. And they don’t even consider that what they trumpet as their fearlessness may just be carelessness about considering the consequences of their actions — or even heartlessness in seeing their audience not as sentient beings whose emotions are integral to their decision-making, but as mere objects to be set on the right path.
One-sentence summary:
A low capacity for sensitivity is often unintentional and is therefore excusable; a low regard for sensitivity is often intentional and is therefore far less excusable.
Think it over:
- Why is a low capacity for sensitivity excusable?
- How is low regard for sensitivity manifested in three degrees of misconceptions?
- What’s wrong with these misconceptions about sensitivity?
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17.15: Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
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