The person in the next seat

It is easy to admit that empathy is hard for people far away. The family in another country, the voter on the other side, the shopper whose life looks nothing like ours. They believe what we do not. They have lived through things we have only read about. Imagining their day takes effort, and most of the time we do not make it.

So we tell ourselves the problem is distance, and that closeness would fix it.

It does not. The brother who sits beside you at every family lunch is also carrying something you cannot see. So is the friend who always arrives late, the mother who tells the same story twice, the neighbour whose car never moves. You know their faces very well. You know far less about what each of them is facing, and the story each is telling themselves about it.

Closeness gives us the confidence of knowing someone without the knowledge. In a way that makes it harder than distance, because nothing reminds us to wonder.

Near or far, empathy is the same unglamorous work. It means assuming there is more going on than you can see, asking before deciding, and holding your judgement a little longer than is comfortable. It rarely pays at once. Nobody thanks you for the argument you chose not to start.

But it is the only thing that turns people who happen to stand near each other into people who trust each other. That trust is what lets a family, a street or a market work at all.

It is hard, close up and far away. It is almost always worth the trouble.