A ruzzian drone hit last night (Oct. 24, 2025) in Kyiv, a synagogue in Podil. It was just two blocks from my apartment, where I stayed in July/August.
I walked past it every other day during my runs along the Dnipro River. I don’t know why it makes war feel more tangible when something or someone you know is affected, but I assume it’s wired into all of us.
However, the ability to empathize with beings you’ve never met is, as far as we know, a unique characteristic exclusive to humans. It’s extraordinary. Many would say—and I believe—that it is God-given. Some of you will empathize with Ukraine even though you’ve never been there.
Yet, as we know, some of our fellow humans clearly lack this trait. The irony is that most of them claim to be “Christian,’ at least in this country… In other places, they might claim ‘Muslim,’ ‘Hindu,’ or whatever the dominant religion is there.
One might wonder whether they are somehow damaged—either not fully developed or evolved —since empathy appears to be a defining trait of humanity.
Some call these individuals ‘,’ estimating they comprise between 1% and 5% of the population. Yet, they almost certainly represent a much larger percentage among political, corporate, and religious leaders—those willing to forego feelings of empathy, which is easier if you don’t have them in the first place- to attain power.
But they wouldn’t reach these top positions if it weren’t for us—the majority, with a healthy dose of empathy—allowing them to lead and to be believed when they claim “goodness” like being “Christians,” even after they misquote the Bible or hold it upside down, or demand cuts to small budgets that save tiny lives, while bailing out their fellow narcissistic political allies half a world away. Pro-life? Sounds more like pro-narcissists to me.
The question is: when will we, the empathetic majority, the true pro-lifers, demand an end to the suffering caused by the unempathetic minority?
Or will the unempathetic, aka narcissists, change us and shape US in THEIR image first? Weakening our resolve to alleviate human suffering, and instead, spreading more of it. Looking out for ourselves only (AKA the “Gadsden” movement).
Looking at the USA now, it seems we either have a country with an extraordinarily high percentage of narcissists or a significant part of the population has been transformed into the image of some of the most narcissistic, unempathetic, and un-Godlike people to walk this earth.
Thankfully, much of the rest of the world, including Ukraine—a country fighting for its very survival—is not experiencing this particular brand of misery right now. But as evidenced by their nightly attacks, Ukrainians are suffering mightily under the narcissistic spasms of their much larger and much more spiritually damaged next-door neighbor’s moral failings. Narcissism is never satisfied with being contained; it must spread, like any disease.
As for me, I prefer to endure the terror of drones and missiles in Ukraine rather than watch my own country be dragged down by a cauldron of selfish, short-sighted narcissists, while at the same time, a significant percentage pretends that this is somehow normal.
To squander all our inherited power and goodness and instead match the misery of a failed, terroristic state like ruzzia, where the ultra-wealthy few run the show, and the rest of us are sedated serfs and slaves, seems to be the rough outline of the plan. Democracy is for thinkers, and thinkers are in short supply.
But empathetic souls still make up the majority in the US, and we need to assert OUR will, for a change. Then watch as the hate-filled narcissists and their weak-willed supporters crawl back under the rocks from whence they came, until they will, as always, eventually strike again.
And again, will hopefully be defeated once more, just like ruzzia is learning, one million plus casualties later, almost four years after their “three-day special military operation.” Some lessons can only be learned the hard way, as we are learning too.
Empathy = Strength. Period.
Stay strong, all!
