Azar Nafisi writes about how she believes that through empathy we have deep connections to everyone. In her This I Believe Essay, she explains that empathy cannot be accomplished unless we enter someone else’s world through imagination. During the essay empathy is described as the “shock of recognition.” I guess I see why she called it a shock, we take in a huge amount of emotion when we begin to empathize. She talks about the “mysterious connections that link individuals to each other despite their vast differences.” I think that these mysterious connections are what this This I Believe essay is really about and empathy is how we make these connections. She gives many examples of how we can make these connections through empathy. One example that was given was about a woman in Kabul who was shot to death for wearing clothes deemed inappropriate. She says, we cannot empathize with situations like this by being politically correct, but only through placing ourselves in other people’s shoes.

The author really gives a new perspective on empathy. I got to admit, I’ve never really thought about empathy before. I think before I just viewed it as feeling sorry for someone. But Nafisi’s description of it was really pretty interesting. I especially thought it was interesting when she said that, “Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.” I guess this implies that we all empathize. I was originally drawn to this piece because I thought, from the title, that it was going to be more about connections we have to people through other people (like Dutch bingo). But I found it very interesting because it gives a new perspective on empathy.

One of the things I thought Natifi did particularly well in this essay was giving support. I thought it was a very good idea to give