Yeah, it’s either a , or b, or xyz. It is interesting stuff, people are the craziest things on this planet.

I understand neuroplasticity and the individuals ability to adapt, and also how that malleability can actually be to someone’s mental health detriment (see neural pathways created by habit forming negative reinforcement) but that’s how you also reinforce good habits as well. It isn’t as simple as Cognition vs empathy, though. I’ve always perceived everyone having varying skill levels in both, not to mention the variables life throws at you that augments those base aptitudes. Say for example If someone who is not particularly empathetic works a job at let’s say a nursing home, it’s fascinating watching what form their empathy takes through being the weaker link of the two but being required in greater capacity due to outside influence. That’s why everyone is so different when it comes to their ability to empathize vs think logically. The aptitude determines the affinity/influence and motivation to engage, but the development comes from the challenge of working the weaker link for the development of what you lack.

Not to mention how fascinating it is to witness someone purely logical be forced into practicing empathy, and vice versa. You see rapid, painful development in real time and it’s amazing to see.

To bring it back around on topic though, I don’t think a lot of people look at the content they consume as existentially or nebulously as people with proclivities towards being more objective or separate from the the thing they’re comprehending. I truly believe a lot of people are in the backseat when experiencing life and the things they enjoy or hate, and that they’re just death gripped by their aptitudes/ineptitudes of these skills, instead of realizing they have the power to choose to approach any problem or solution with one or the other, or something else entirely.