Clueyness: A Weird Kind of Sad

[xoxoxoBruce]

Clueyness? Whazat?

One weekend day, my grandfather went to the store and brought a new board game home for the family: Clue.
He excitedly asked my father and his sister (who were 7 and 9 at the time) if they wanted to play. They did. They joined him at the kitchen table as he opened up the game, read the instructions and explained to them how to play, divided up the cards and put all the pieces where they go.

Just as they were about to start, the doorbell rang. It was the neighbor kids, who said they were on their way outside to play some outdoor game they all used to play. Without a second thought, my dad and aunt jumped up from their seats and left with their friends. A few hours later, they came back to the house. The game had been put back in the closet.
At the time, my dad didn’t think much of it—pretty normal day in their lives. But later on, he found himself remembering that day, and he always felt bad about it.

Pretty random story for my dad to tell me, right? The reason he did was because it was part of a conversation where I was trying to articulate a certain thing I suffer from, which is feeling incredibly bad for certain people in certain situations—situations in which the person I feel bad for was probably barely affected by what happened. It’s an odd feeling of intense heartbreaking compassion for people who didn’t actually go through anything especially bad. When I explained this, my dad said, “I know what you’re talking about,” and offered up the Clue story.

Hard to say it's a bad thing, it's empathy to the max, and probably one of the glues of civilization. However it can be handicapping, even debilitating, in extreme cases. One of those too-much-of-a-good-thing deals, Mom warned you about.

An interesting article, with maybe a little extra drama, but that's probably a side effect of the affliction.