My capacity for empathy has become selective

[Harker]

57. republicants have always tested my better nature...

as they are strewn along my chosen path like so many large, fresh piles of shit.

I don't particularly want them dead, but I most certainly want them to stop causing suffering. If dying is the only way for them to achieve that, then there will be some joy to be found in it.

I'm a half-assed Buddhist at best. The teachings that focus on viewing difficult people as treasure troves of opportunity for practicing compassion, and those that instruct one to view oneself as inferior to all others are becoming increasingly difficult for me, rather than more natural.

I'll keep trying. My empathy is being severely tested.