I got sick this week.
I’m not usually the type to get sick. Once or twice a year, I’ll have something mild that lasts a couple of days and then goes away. But this time it wasn’t like that. It was a period marked by long sleeps, feverish nights, and a feeling of heaviness that lasted for days—it was quite exhausting. Even getting out of bed felt like torture.
At our house, my husband usually gets sick a little more often than I do. I’d just stay by his side, wish him a speedy recovery, and go about my business.
This time, the roles were reversed. And my husband took such good care of me that, somewhere in the midst of the fever, I realized:
I hadn’t been taking good care of him when he was sick.
It’s hard to write this, but I’ll write it anyway, because the entire post is built around this.
I can’t say I treated him badly. I’m not rude, and I’m not indifferent. I know she’s sick, I know she isn’t lying, and I know she’s going through a difficult time.
So, on my part, there’s no lack of information on this matter.
But it seems I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. I’d say, “It’ll pass.” I’d go about my business. I wouldn’t sit down next to you and ask how you were feeling, for example. It wouldn’t occur to me to ask if you needed anything.
And now, looking back, I know I didn’t do this with any ill intent. I just didn’t know what was going on.
That’s what really got me thinking. Didn’t I know? I did. Then what didn’t I know?
As I was thinking about this question, a thought experiment I’d read years ago came to mind.
There’s a famous example by the philosopher Frank Jackson called “Mary’s Room.” Mary is a color scientist, but she has lived her entire life in a black-and-white room. She knows the physics of color, she knows the wavelengths of light, and she has a complete understanding of how the eye and brain process colors. She knows everything there is to know about the subject.
Then one day she steps out of the room and sees the color red for the first time.
Jackson’s question is this: Did Mary learn something new? (1*)
I think the answer is very clear. She did. And what she learned wasn’t written in any book.
It turns out I was the “Mary” of the disease. I had all the knowledge, but I’d never left the room.
Then I also thought: why is pain so impossible to convey?
There’s a very clear observation in Elaine Scarry’s book *The Body That Suffers*. One of the most fundamental characteristics of pain is that it cannot be shared. (2*)
Your own pain is an absolute reality for you. It’s indisputable, requires no proof—it’s a direct experience. But another person’s pain is merely a piece of information to you. An assumption. Something you “accept as true.”
In other words, while pain is a certainty for the one experiencing it, to an outside observer, it’s nothing more than a guess.
I don’t think this is a bad thing; it’s simply human nature. But that’s precisely why it’s dangerous. Because we forget to take seriously something we don’t feel ourselves.
And we don’t even realize we’ve forgotten. I didn’t realize it, for example, until I got a fever.
I need to stop here and ask: since we can’t understand it without experiencing it, what are we supposed to do?
Because if we take this idea to its logical conclusion, we end up in a pessimistic place. Saying “If you haven’t lived it, you can’t understand it” is actually just a polite way of saying “Then there’s no point in even trying.” I don’t accept that.
I think the solution lies here: understanding and taking something seriously are not the same thing.
You might need to experience something to understand it. But you don’t need to experience it to take it seriously.
So we need to be able to say this: “I haven’t experienced this, so I don’t really know how hard it is. But I believe this situation is hard for you, and I’ll act accordingly.”
It sounds like a humble statement, but it’s actually a difficult one. Because the voice inside us is always whispering the same thing: “It can’t be that bad.”
That voice is always there. And most of the time, it’s wrong.
There’s also this: imagination can’t take the place of the body.
I think we need to accept this. When we say, “I put myself in their shoes,” what we’re actually doing is placing ourselves in their situation. But we can’t put ourselves into their body, their past, or their threshold.
That’s why there’s a limit to what we call empathy. And I think true maturity lies in not denying that limit.
When you accept that limit, something interesting happens: you become more careful. When you think you understand, you relax; when you know you don’t understand, you ask.
Maybe it’s really that simple. Asking instead of assuming you understand.
I think that’s exactly what they meant when they said, “A single misfortune is better than a thousand pieces of advice.”
Advice gives us information. A misfortune, on the other hand, lets us experience something firsthand. The two don’t lead to the same place.
But here’s the bitter truth: a misfortune is a good teacher, but a very expensive one. What’s more, you don’t choose the lesson—it chooses you. It determines when it will come, what it will teach, and what the cost will be.
That’s why the real skill might be learning from advice—before adversity strikes.
I didn’t manage to do that this time. I didn’t understand until I was the one in the fire.
Once again, I’d like to share these exercises I’ve prepared for myself with you:
Think of a struggle that someone close to you constantly talks about. Have you ever experienced it yourself? If not, how solid can your opinion really be?
Recall a moment when you thought, “They’re exaggerating.” What made you say that?
Try to take a challenge you don’t understand seriously. You don’t have to understand it—it’s enough to believe it.
When you ask someone, “How are you?” really wait for their answer. If the answer isn’t “I’m fine,” don’t change the subject. Try to understand what they’re going through.
Think about a challenge you’ve faced yourself. What did you expect from those around you at that time? Now ask the opposite: if someone else were going through the same challenge, would you give them the very thing they’d expect from you?
This week, do something for someone—without them asking—that you think they might need.
Thankfully, the illness has passed. I’m fine right now as I write this.
But one thing remains. Now I know what it’s like when my spouse gets sick. I know it not just intellectually, but physically.
And the real thing this knowledge has left me with isn’t awareness—it’s a debt. Because I can’t take back the things I didn’t do in the past.
Maybe that’s why I’m telling this story. Not for next time, but to remind myself: there are so many things I don’t understand, and I’ll probably never experience most of them.
But I can take them seriously. I don’t have to get sick to do that.
I’d like to ask you, too: Is there a hardship that someone close to you has experienced but you’ve never experienced yourself? Can you take it seriously without understanding it?
See you in the next post. Until then, stay well.
(1*) Frank Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia” (1982)
(2*) Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain (1985)
