How to understand other people can be difficult, but developing empathy can start by ‘putting yourself in their shoes’, as much as you know. A good start can be reading, because it exposes you to new ideas in a safe situation, where it’s hard to offend others while developing the ability to empathize. That said, learning to understand often requires exposure to details very different from your own perspective. What makes someone happy, love languages, simple pleasures, or even what causes pain.
•Slice of Life
Slice of Life is a light hearted version of drama. Cute kids, sweet interactions, and amusement at little things in life. From cooking to sports (not my personal favorite, despite the great growth potential for teamwork and striving for goals), and family.
•Comedy
Comedy: from Dad jokes like puns, or knock knock jokes for a snicker or rolled eyes, to witty comebacks twisted complex insults that are subtle (children used to call ‘Burns’ similar to ‘your mama jokes’ if hard to understand), and connections between ideas, or accidents from unexpected experiences that leave you howling on the ground . . . there’s a lot of different ways to find humor in life. It means there’s plenty of material for writing the same.
•Psychological
Psychological can be a difficult subject to create, because from broken emotions to twisting perspectives, the character growth or changes can be brutal. Stomach twisting in knots from empathy, or overwhelmed from contrasting ideas to beliefs, in uncomfortable settings. And yet, the current trend of making mental health a more open topic can be exactly that. The definition of Psych-ology–with ology meaning ‘study of’ and psych meaning ‘mind’–is literally the study of the mind.
-There are many types of disorders or Psychological issues in our world. PTSD (which many soldiers suffer from as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), or anxiety and depression are so prevalent in society, you probably have met someone in your life struggling with one of these three, even if you didn’t know it. These conditions affect people’s happiness, as well as how they interact with others, from hiding it, to making excuses, or struggling to overcome the issues. If you don’t understand what they are struggling with, which can be as severe as injuries needing emergency care in the hospital, it can come as a surprise when quitting jobs, divorces, isolation tendencies for pushing others away, meltdowns, destructive or self-sabotage, even suicides might result from not being treated properly. Some in life might be unknowingly adding to burdens, by encouraging with love and ‘expecting great things’ from them, others could be cruel and have the same effect. Although health is private, for many good reasons, if you love someone, you want the best for them, and to do that, sometimes the efforts to understand struggles and support their recovery, can be helpful.
-Besides the results after trauma, there are causes, and recognizing signs of abuse, like neglect, can be uncomfortable . . . a common urge is to sweep it under the rug. Don’t look at it, don’t talk about it, & pretend it doesn’t exist, because life shouldn’t be used to drag down the mood. I wholeheartedly DISAGREE! As difficult as the conversations are, from teachers who have to be trained to spot abuse, to experts in health, it’s important to protect our community by learning what causes the symptoms, and if causing it ourselves, getting help to break the cycle. Physical Abuse, Mental & Emotional Abuse, to Sexual Abuse, all of them have a long term effect on people, in negative ways. So, the best thing to do is help the community be aware, recognize, and help treat everyone involved. Usually, those doing the actions were once victims of the same, thus the cycle of abuse.
–
Genius vs Savant
How reliable is IQ?
Actually, IQ tests do not test all types of intelligence, since it has no physical control, spatial awareness, musical . . . Or any of the <full list or link to types of intelligence>
Brain over developed in an area, but often an imbalance in other areas. Eg. A brilliant mathematician counting every card or click by calculating speeds, able to win huge in gambling, but unable to tie shoes, or peel a banana! Inverse that with incredible social or athletic skills, yet incapable of mathematic addition. The movie Rainman is a good example of the struggles using the functions and flaws of Raymond. Similar in nature, a tv show called Scorpion has a team of Geniuses (based on a real story), and how with their extremes in different genius skills, they might have emotional or function flaws that make normal jobs and livelihood difficult.
–
Anger
Although anger isn’t a genre, for emotional understanding, I wanted to dedicate a little note to how common it is. Anger is rarely the original emotion, because it is translated from unprocessed emotions into the comfortable, familiar, and empowering sensation. Healthy processes of emotion rarely lead straight to anger as the first response. Laughing, politely excusing, requests to clarify if their words or actions were understood. Also, no one can ‘make you’ be angry. You can feel angry, especially if they know the history of what has pushed your buttons before, but from anger management techniques to therapeutic efforts, or even self-discovered ways to not hold a grudge, are possible.
Eg. 1: An embarrassing moment after a mistake on the pants while eating, making noise, followed by snapping at others, to demand what they are looking at. Embarrassment-> attention enhancing to shame -> anger.
Eg. 2: A crush, unshared, turned to obsession, and in trying to control the one desired, it turns into stalking. Number one, only you, only me, love, hope, and certainty that happiness if noticed and loved. When rejected, the lust, hope, possessiveness, all of it destroyed with ambient grief (might be the wrong label here), the rejection turns to denial, disappointment, eventually rage, with excises like being misunderstood, and could convince, if listen and obey the commands to love them, only them, and play along in the fantasy romance they’ve invested in creating for their future. . . . P.S. Treating a person as an object, whether control, possession, or terrorizing, it has stopped being love, and stalking in a scary scary unromantic thing. If you are bring stalked, check recommendations on the best way to deal with it, but start by ignoring it. Do not accept gifts, don’t justify with words to explain, just avoid, with cold shoulder and not answering messages. Getting help from people around you and in your life, up to restraining orders if necessary.
Anger is the illusion of control, which is why taunting, getting someone’s goat, or causing others to loose their cool during a fight, is so often used.