Thank you for this post.

I have been writing a book based on how empathy could affect the world. In other words, a mutant child is born with the gift of empathy.

Although her gift keeps growing, she is also, for her own survival, forced to grow stronger and learn how to defend herself.

As with many writers, I allowed the characters to take control of their story and the results, with regard to how empathy affects us, surprised me and also forced me to rethink what a positive empathy could or should become.

As with so much else, it is not just empathy itself that is wrong or right, it is how we define the rules of empathy.