Here's your ONE drop:
I learned the word "altruism" last week. At 39. Embarrassing. Second languages are a slow burn.
Also learned that around 400 Americans a year donate a kidney to someone they don't know. Which is… a lot.
Scientists wanted to know what makes these people tick. What separates these extreme altruists from, well, the rest of us who think that’s completely insane.
Turns out their brains are different. Eight percent larger amygdalas (the part of the brain that registers fear and processes emotions) that light up like Christmas trees when they see fear. They feel other people’s fear almost as if it were their own, an emotional resonance that makes suffering impossible to ignore.
Psychopaths sit at the other end. Eighteen percent smaller amygdalas, barely flicker. Barely register distress at all. Their under-reactive amygdalas are like a volume knob turned way down on empathy.
Everyone else: somewhere in the middle, helping when convenient.
The research shows you can actually train compassion. Biology explains the early adopters, but culture seems to shift the middle faster than evolution shifts our brains.
Society keeps moving what "normal" generosity looks like. A hundred years ago, blood donation seemed absurd. Today you do it for a cookie at the grocery store.
Most of us aren’t wired to be saints. We don’t need to be. Society just keeps raising the bar on ordinary kindness.
Makes you wonder what we’ll be casual about in 2050. And whether the kidney donors are crazy, or just early.
// Ann