One of my favourite pastimes is reading.
Just like any tv show or movie, it acts as entertainment; as an escape from who I am. Any novel can completely transport me into a different scene - a different time period, a different place, a different mind.
I can picture the scenery - especially if it is set in places that I have been.
My favourite part is having a first-hand view of someone else's mind. I get to experience how a character thinks and feels and how his/her reactions are different from my own.
I think that the reason I can achieve feeling empathy for another person is not just because of my experience with illness.
Yes I have felt the icy cold stiffness of joints that are aged beyond the amount of time I have actually been alive. Yes, I have experienced being on Death's door and trying to turn around and come back. Yes, I have had the side effects of women who go through menopause, or mental patients who experience auditory and visual and sensory hallucinations, of panic, of anxiety, of mood swings. Yes, I have experienced pain that I cannot describe and fear that is unrelatable....
But I think that being able to put myself away and allow a novel to envelop me and create for me my very own character into people and places that I could never actually experience - THAT is what truly helps me to understand and empathize.
I can imagine how one might think in certain situations because I have had the opportunity to read the thoughts of someone else going through that situation. I can connect to his/her psyche by allowing myself to become the person on the page.
And how intimate is that? That I can actually read the very thoughts of people who I may never even meet.
Empathy is such a valuable characteristic. One that can be learned. :)