A Brainwave On Compassion

At around nine o’clock every morning, one of my neighbours walks her two little kids (one and three, I’d say) to school. They stop briefly on the pavement right across the building to wave hello to the old lady on the second floor –the one who calls me a cow, incidentally, though in the nicest possible way. I’m usually having tea on my balcony by then, and can’t help but notice the cute little neighbourly scene. The older one always used to have something to say to the lady, while the baby was busy waving in every possible direction. The old lady shouting in her shaky, happy voice and the mum translating the children’s babbling for her. It was one of those moments that filled me with a general sort of optimism for the day.

Recently, though, the older one seems to be going through a phase. She refuses to acknowledge the old lady and would do anything to avoid having to wave to her. What’s more, she tries her hardest to prevent the little one from waving too, covering her eyes or crowding into the stroller to block her view. Kids are kids, of course, and entitled to their stages of development. But the situation got me wondering…

Could she be behaving that way because she’s picking up on the old lady’s weakness? After all, kids seem to have an infallible knack for this. And, developing the theory a little further, does this mean that the intuitive reaction to weakness is –if not necessarily exploitation– rejection? It reminded me of this past June, when my parents got a new kitten. Feeling utterly lost and vulnerable, he walked up to the older cat, hoping for some love and care. Instead he got a wallop in the face –the older one’s unpremeditated, hundred percent intuitive reaction.

Could compassion be a completely fabricated sentiment, institutionalised and taught, but not at all intuitive? If my neighbour would explain to her daughter that the old lady’s kind of lonely, and that her morning wave may be something she looks forward to, would it make her more inclined to wave, or less?