I was about 11-12 years old when I first came across the word empathy. Sympathy was much more common than empathy, at least in the Indian readership. My mom explained to me what it meant and how it was different from its step-sister: sympathy. Then, she gave me Daniel Goleman's book to get a better idea of it. Goleman goes as deep into it as to explain the discovery of mirror neurons. It was fascinating to read about how we create in our minds a simulation of someone else's misery, how we project ourselves into their circumstances for a better understanding of their world, and how we come up with some of the best human attributes such as helping a stranger out. From then on, I have persistently questioned myself about the versatility and bounds of such a projection. Are there people that I cannot empathize with? Are there circumstances where my mirror neurons are going to fail to make the simulation?
However, empathy is now a buzzword. Everyone seems empathetic about everything today. The term is in the speeches of high school graduation ceremonies and alike in presidential addresses. You are not supposed to question the bounds. You are either empathetic, or you are not. If you are empathetic then you are good, and if you are not, then you are bad. Also, you are allowed to restrictively empathize with only certain people. Rules not only too crude but also too convenient for social commentary and public judgment. However, the emptiness of such an approach is that it takes you away from being able to create that projection that's necessary for generating any real empathy. As a result, you get to see trolls talk about empathy while expressing explicit hate and implicit bias about people who don't share their worldview. Being empathetic to a person that is your ideological twin is not empathy, it's narcissism. Being able to empathize is an extremely committed process that takes accumulating experience and stretching your imagination to try and include even those that you hate. But like all other beautiful and challenging human things, we try to hollow out empathy for ease, to be rule-based, by spicing it up with mediocre labels.