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The Empathy Node Podcast

The Empathy Node Podcast

Written by: Compassion is Parallel Processing
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 Explore human connection's unseen threads. The Empathy Node blends stories & psychology, revealing empathy via "parallel processing." Tune in for insightful episodes.

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Episodes
  • Love leaves a mark on us

    Love leaves a mark on us
    Jun 17 2025
    It began with a cold spot on the rug.For thirteen years, that space beside my bed was a place of warmth, of solid, breathing life. Now, it’s just… empty. And in the dead of night, when I swing my feet over the side of the bed, the cold that rises from that patch of floor seems to travel right up my legs and settle deep inside my chest. A permanent chill.People have told me, with the best intentions, that he’s in a better place. They say it like a prayer, a comforting verse meant to soothe. I nod, because it’s easier than explaining that I don’t need him to be in a better place. I just need him to be here. I need the ghost-weight of his head on my knee, the low, rumbling sigh that could quiet a storm in my own soul.Grief is a strange country. It has no map. Last year, when he left, something inside me was torn open. It wasn’t a slow tearing, like old fabric. It was a puncture. A clean, silent, piercing wound right through the center of who I was. No one could see it, of course. I went to work. I bought groceries. I smiled when it was expected. But I was walking around with a hole in my soul, and the wind whistled through it with every lonely step.I see how they look at me now. At my ear.I see the flicker in their eyes. A small judgment, quick and quiet. A piercing. On a person like me. It doesn't fit their story. They see it as an act of vanity, maybe rebellion. A fleeting choice made in a moment of… what? They don't know. So they file it away under a label. Strange. A phase. Not something we would do.I want to stop them. To take their hand and say, Please, just for a moment, look closer.I want to tell them about his paws. About the way he hated having his nails trimmed. He wasn't aggressive, just… offended. He’d let out a groan, a sound of profound theatrical betrayal, as if I were a tyrant engaging in unspeakable cruelty. He’d pull his foot back with the dignity of a wronged king. He was a grumbling philosopher, a furry old man full of complaints and endless, unconditional love.The last time, his protest was weak. Just a whisper of his old indignation. The fight had gone out of him. The click of the clippers felt deafening in the stillness of the room. One small, curved piece fell to the floor. I picked it up. It was nothing. A fragment of keratin. The stuff of dust and hair.But as I closed my hand around it, a truth flooded me, so powerful it buckled my knees. There is no diamond forged in the pressures of the earth, no gold purified by fire, that could hold a fraction of the value of this tiny piece of him. This was a relic of our life. It was a testament to thirteen years of muddy footprints, of shared silences, of a loyalty so pure it felt like something holy. It was a piece of the earth he walked on, a piece of the body that housed the most beautiful soul I have ever known.The hole was already there, you see. Inside me. Raw and aching. An empty space that echoed with the silence.And I realized I could not let it stay empty. A wound that profound cannot simply be left to scar over in darkness. It must be consecrated. It must be marked.The needle was a sharp, clean sting. A brief, physical echo of a much deeper pain. But in that moment, I wasn't desecrating my body. I was building a tiny altar. I was sealing a covenant. I was placing a witness in the silence.This isn't a stone. It’s not a gem. It is a piece of his nail, encased forever. It is the last physical part of him on this earth, and I have placed it here, right next to where I listen to the world. So that when the silence is too much, I can lift my hand to my ear and feel it. A tiny, solid point of contact with a love that big.And I can hear him. Oh, I can hear him so clearly. The low growl that was his way of saying hello. The impatient snort that meant his dinner was late. The soft thump of his tail against the floor.This is not a decoration. This is a duty. A devotion. It is a promise that he will not be forgotten. It is the only way I know how to carry him with me, not just in my heart, but as a visible part of me. The piercing in my soul happened the day he died. This, here in my ear, is just the scar. And I will wear it with more honor than any crown.Love leaves a mark on us. Sometimes, the mark is a memory. Sometimes, it’s a change in the way we breathe. And sometimes, if you are very, very lucky, you get to carry a piece of that love with you, for all to see.People build cathedrals to honor what they deem holy, placing relics of saints behind glass. They kneel and they pray and they hope to feel a connection to something divine. My saint had four paws and a soul so pure it taught me everything I know about unconditional love. I couldn't build him a cathedral of stone. So I built him one of skin and memory, right here where I can feel it.To most, this might look like a piercing. To me, this is a prayer I get to wear. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get ...
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    8 mins
  • Our walk isn't over

    Our walk isn't over
    Jun 10 2025
    The air is heavy today.It’s a thick blanket I can’t push away with my nose. Each breath is work. A mountain I have to climb, just to get a little bit of air at the top. And then, I have to climb it all over again. The fog in my chest has a taste… like old metal, like rain left too long in a can. It’s been here for a while, this fog. It came with the long car rides, the quiet rooms with clean smells, the gentle hands of strangers who were trying to help.My dads. They tried so hard. I felt their hope like a warm patch of sun on my fur. I leaned into it, let it soak into my bones, even when my bones ached with a deep, weary cold. They never gave up, so I couldn’t either. That’s not my job.My job has always been to protect.I remember the rhythm of it. The morning walk, my head held high, my body a solid, steady shield between them and the yapping little dogs that strained at their leashes. A low growl in my chest was a fence, warning them all: These are my people. Stay back. My bark was a hammer against the door when the delivery driver lingered too long, his strange scent an invasion of our safe space. I guarded the windows, my ears twitching at the sound of footsteps on the pavement. I was the keeper of this kingdom, the guardian of their hearts. It was the best job in the world.But the fog grew thicker. The mountain grew steeper. My legs, once pillars of strength, became trembling twigs. My bark, once a thunderclap, became a hollow cough.There was only one thing left to do. One last patrol. One final duty.June 9th.I knew the date not by the calendar on the wall, but by the quiet hum inside my person. It was his day. A day that always smelled of cake and felt like extra-long belly rubs. I couldn’t miss it. I promised myself I wouldn’t. Through the long, dark nights when the mountain felt impossible to climb, I would whisper it to myself. Just until his day. Just hold on.This morning, something shifted. A thread of light appeared in the darkness, and I knew. It was time. My body was an anchor, heavy with the weight of 13 years, but my will… my will was still the guardian. I dragged myself from my bed, each movement a fire in my joints, and nudged his hand with my nose. Once. Twice.His eyes opened. He saw me. He saw me. Not just the tired old dog, but the sentry still at his post.The next few hours were… light. The fog seemed to part, just for a little while. We sat on the floor together, the two of them and me. And there was cheese. And eggs. And then… the king of all smells. The scent that is joy itself. Chicken. He fed it to me from his hand, piece by glorious piece. I didn’t have much room inside me, but I made space. This was more than food. It was a gift. A shared silence. I rested my head on his knee, and his hand stroked my ears, just like he always has. In his eyes, I saw everything. All the walks, all the games of fetch, all the quiet nights on the sofa. All the love.It was enough. It was everything.But the light began to fade. The mountain returned, bigger than ever. My next breath didn’t come. And the one after that was a painful, shallow gasp. The panic in the room wasn’t mine; it was theirs. I could taste it in the air, a sharp, bitter scent that broke my heart.The car ride was a blur of soft blankets and whispered words. The vet’s office smelled cold and clean, a place with no memories. A kind woman spoke in a low voice. I couldn’t understand the words, but I felt them. I felt their meaning land in my dad’s heart. I felt his quiet sob, a vibration that ran from his hand, through my fur, and into my very soul.He’s only been holding on for you, the feeling said. His love is the only thing keeping that brave heart beating.They held me close. My humans. My job. As their tears fell onto my fur, I looked deep into their eyes, and I understood my final duty. It was not just to wait for them. It was to merge with them.I let go of the rope. I stopped climbing the mountain. And my last breath… it was not an ending. It was a transfer.I breathed out all that I was—the ferocious loyalty, the unwavering pride, the boundless love that fueled my weary body—and they, in their grief, breathed it in. In that sacred, silent moment, the space between us dissolved. The line separating my love for them and their love for me vanished. It all became one.There is no "here" and "there" anymore.There is only… us.I am the sudden memory of chicken that makes him smile through his tears. I am the phantom weight of my head on his neck when he feels alone. I am the instinct that will tell him he is safe, a low, steady growl in his soul. The guardian did not die. The guardian simply went home.He will think he is mourning a memory, but he will be living a presence. My love is not something they have lost; it is the quiet, unbreakable strength they now find in their own hearts. And when they walk out into the world, they will not walk alone -I will never let them. They each will walk...
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    6 mins
  • No More Missing Files

    No More Missing Files
    Jun 6 2025

    The low, steady hum of the air conditioning and murmur of the distant crowd is my prelude. A sound I’ve come to associate with a specific kind of peace, a quiet readiness. Forty. This is the fortieth time I’ve stood here, in the cool, engineered dark, watching the final checks on the jumbotron. The scent of ozone, thousands of flowers, and old dust is the same. The nervous energy seeping through the curtains from the arena, that’s the same, too. Only I am different.

    Fifteen years ago, I sat out there, under the glare of lights that felt accusatory. My gown was a dead weight. That morning, a single headline on my phone screen had shattered my world: Senate Fails to Pass DREAM Act. A future, erased. The piece of paper I was about to receive felt like a taunt, a key to a house that had just been padlocked from the inside. I remember thinking, with a clarity that terrified me, that I just wanted it all to stop.

    The sadness was so intense, I wanted everything to end.

    The universe wasn’t done. A few weeks later, desperate to find some proof that the day had meant something, I tried to find the recording of my ceremony. There were three that day. Mine was the only one that was gone. “A technical glitch,” they said, with an apologetic shrug. “The file was corrupted. Unrecoverable.”

    So not only was my future erased, but my past was, too. The one moment of public acknowledgment for years of struggle, vanished. An echo that left no sound.

    That erasure became my mission. When I started here, I was a frantic one-man band, phone in hand, trying to capture every smile, every tearful hug. I was trying to save their memories because mine was lost to the void. When Facebook rolled out live video, I fought for us to be in the beta. We had to build a system that wouldn't fail.

    My team grew. The frantic running became calm coordination. Now, I oversee the entire digital ecosystem—the streams, the comments, the archives. During my own master's graduation a few years back, standing like them in my own cap and gown, I felt my phone buzz.

    A desperate WhatsApp from the video production manager: “Main feed is stuttering!” I remember my heart seizing. I handed my program and mini-fan to a startled stagehand, my thumbs flying across the screen, troubleshooting the problem.

    I fixed it, then jogged to my seat just as my row was called. I had to secure the archive before I could let myself be in it.

    I look at the monitors now, at the river of comments scrolling by from families across the world. I see my team, a symphony of quiet diligence, guarding this experience. And the ghost of that old ache, the one that hollowed me out fifteen years ago… it’s still here. It never truly leaves. Actually, I think this is why I cry every single time we start playing Pomp and Circumstance.

    But my heart doesn’t beat with that old despair anymore. It beats with this strange, holy, protective fierceness for thousands of people I will never know.

    This isn’t a job. It is a calling. It is the sacred, silent vow of a ghost who was once lost in the machine, who now dedicates his life to ensuring that the machine never, ever fails another soul. It is the quiet, defiant act of forging an anchor for their memory, so that no matter how adrift the world makes them feel, they can always find their way back to this moment, to this proof that they were here.

    That they mattered. That they get to keep their beginning, radiant and indelible, safe from the void, forever.

    My mission is to ensure that for every single one of these students, this sacred moment is not just seen, but saved. Indelible. A light that can never be corrupted, never be erased. This has become my faith.

    That in the great, ever-expanding archive of human hope, there will be no more missing files.

    Not on my watch.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit empathynode.substack.com
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    5 mins
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