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Empathy for non-living things

Ken

Ken

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I am curious how many others experience empathy for non-living things.

My wife has decided to remodel our kitchen and replace all the appliances. I am really having a hard time with this. It is breaking my heart. Especially for the dishwasher. We have had this dishwasher for over 22 years. I have worked on it several times; replacing the main pump motor once then had to repair a manufacturing defect of the new motor once. Also had to replace a failed fill valve and a "flamed" controller PCB.

I think the repairs contributes and amplifies my strong feelings for the dishwasher. It has been working perfectly for the past several years and I feel very affectionate for it. I feel bad that it is being "thrown out" because my wife wants one with a different style. It's a "looks" thing. Something I struggle with because unpopular "looks" has been the theme of my life.

I guess there are other empathy threads, but I wanted to be more specific about empathy towards machines or anything non-living. This seems to be common for me. I was devastated when I was about 10 years old when my father gave away our car. I loved that car and felt it had been extremely loyal to our family; only to just be discarded as junk. This really upsets me and it never goes away. Time is not a cushion. I still feel the trauma for the car, 60 years ago as if it happened today. Each experience adds to the mix adding depression on top of depression.
 
Go to the National Geographic Channel website and link to their show called "Taboos".

In one episode they followed three people I recall. A woman in love with the Berlin Wall and Eiffel Tower, and a man carrying on a passionate relationship with his Volkswagen Beetle. No joke.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-who-loves-the-berlin-wall_n_873944
This television series is how I first learned of this condition known as "Asperger's Syndrome". Having to do with a man who had a life-sized doll for a female companion. The show focused on his relationship, but I was far more interested in the man and his type of autism.
 
I can understand you getting attached to the dishwasher, when you have worked on something and had it for years, it's not just any old dishwasher.

I do get attached to cars. But I think that is common, it's something people spend a lot of time in and becomes attached to. I sent a car to the scrapper a while ago, it was used up. Had it for many years. And there's something about the memories and everything that happened in and around that car that makes it a little sad to see it being crushed. It's like losing a pet in a way, it can be an emotional moment.
 
Sometimes I pat my car on its console. But then an automobile has always remained my most important possession for more practical considerations.
 
Yes, I totally experience the same thing. Examples include beautiful old pottery, glass or ceramics I've known all my life that get chipped or broken, having to sell my 1976 Saab in 1982, ruining my favorite pair of black leather boots by walking through water for several hours. There are many other inanimate objects that I love and would be sad if they were destroyed.

It's not a sadness from a material or monetary loss point of view, but a kind of mourning for a beloved old friend.
 
Mary Terry said:
It's not a sadness from a material or monetary loss point of view, but a kind of mourning for a beloved old friend.
Click to expand...

I still occasionally grieve for a stolen sports car taken in 1982. My first car too.

Also a major trigger for my OCD. I still panic at the prospect of a stolen car when I can't immediately find it in a parking lot. So I must consider "landmarks" of any kind anywhere I park to avoid this. :(
 
@Ken

I can definitely relate to what you’ve described here. It’s very easy for me to get attached to things that have a face or represent some sort creature (like a small statue, a craft project, or a stuffy), but also, I can get very attached to special stones, things that help me function, or things that I have used overtime. I especially relate to what you described about the sadness of the destruction of things and throwing them away. It is certainly not for everything. Sometimes it is very easy for me to throw things away and I rather enjoy it. But there are other things that for some reason, I feel bad for throwing them away, mistreating them, or even ignoring them for too long.

I do get rather attached to my cars and feel each one has a different personality. This makes a lot of sense to me since I spend so much time in the car and it becomes a place of security and solitude, not to mention the enjoyable adventures on which it takes me. Other things that come to mind are shoes, certain travel mugs for warm drinks, tools that I use and my hats. I definitely chat with my hat on occasion saying things like “thank you hat, you are so good to me!“ Or I will apologize to one hat because I choose to wear the other one.
 
My car help me survive a hellish divorce, and 4 car accidents (someone set me up). So l really felt like my car saved my life. My parents named their cars.
 
It's not uncommon to become "attached" to important things, like cars and houses. Memories are often made with that connection. My first car, a '69 Ford XL 2dr fastback was important to me. My high school sweetheart and I had a lot of fun in that car. I had the car painted a custom color, a light metalic teal, with a black vinyl top. Sharp looking car. I polished and waxed it. Even showed it off at a local car show. I had to sell it for money for school to a former high school classmate of mine. 3 weeks later, he got drunk, ran it off the road into a field and that was the end of the car. I was some 200 miles away at school and unable to kick his lilly arse for doing that to "my baby". My '89 Mustang I bought stock, pulled it apart, cage, rebuilt everything on the car, raced it for years. Its final years with me were relegated to the garage, without the heart to sell it, always with big plans on doing another "resto-mod" to it, but without having the money nor time at that part of my life. I had literally bled on that car several times, I hated and loved working on that car, spending my money on repairs and maintenance. It was a part of me. So, yeah, it was really bittersweet selling it to some young auto mechanic with dreams of doing the "resto-mod" for him and his young children to enjoy. He called me about an hour after he got the car to his home, just to tell me how happy he was with the car, how he showed it off to his buddies at the shop, did some burnout videos, etc. It was all good, as far as I was concerned.

Both these vehicles, I was like the young man in that Stephen King movie, Christine. The way he spoke with love for the car as if it were actually alive, and how that car took care of him. I can remember being a 17 yr old kid washing and polishing my car, talking to it as if it were alive. Later on, I certainly spoke to my Mustang on the track like we were the dynamic duo out to win the day. My in-car videos I had at the time are a bit embarrassing with me talking to the car the whole time. :)
 
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Judge said:
Go to the National Geographic Channel website and link to their show called "Taboos".

In one episode they followed three people I recall. A woman in love with the Berlin Wall and Eiffel Tower, and a man carrying on a passionate relationship with his Volkswagen Beetle. No joke.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-who-loves-the-berlin-wall_n_873944
This television series is how I first learned of this condition known as "Asperger's Syndrome". Having to do with a man who had a life-sized doll for a female companion. The show focused on his relationship, but I was far more interested in the man and his type of autism.
Click to expand...
Yep, I have seen that, but I don't think it is exactly the same with me. I don't have any "lover" type attachment feelings. I just feel empathy for the item. like I place myself in it's position as how I would feel if I were discarded or just kicked out, thrown away, etc.

Placing myself in it's position seems to be a default thing with me. I do that with almost everything, living or not. I do that with most animals and almost all non-living things. Much less with other humans though. I guess the reality, however, is that instead of thinking how I would feel in that position, I just automatically feel it.
 
Sounds more like nostalgia and a dislike for change than empathy for objects, which would probably constitute a delusion.
 
Judge said:
Sometimes I pat my car on its console. But then an automobile has always remained my most important possession for more practical considerations.
Click to expand...
I do that too, but more in a "come on dear car, you can accelerate, and get up this hill, I have faith in you" it's an ~18 year old Toyota Aygo with visible algae growth, in need of a new clutch and an a/c that stopped working years ago... but no visible rust, and it still startes every time as long as the battery is charged, I love that car :) - I'm not a car person, I never did anything more advance than top up the sprinkler, add gas, and charge the battery. It's the service shop that does the rest once a year.
 
I'm not usually that attached to non-living objects unless they look like living things, like toy figures and stuffed animals or something like that. I've had to get my washer and dryer replaced I don't know how many times and that's all that they are to me, something to wash and dry my clothes. I am thankful that no I longer have to go to the laundromat.
 
I grow very much attached to my project vehicles but I DO NOT have empathy for them. Then again maybe they like being beat on, they can't speak, that's probably a good thing.
 
Any chance you can make a new "skin" for that dishwasher to keep you both happy? Or, sell it cheap to someone who will continue to appreciate it?
I'll be sad if I can't find someone to continue happily using my tools and other gear. Of course, they won't have the happy memories of how a lot of my stuff was rescued from discards. When my car died of a loose wire, I looked for it for a year before giving up and making it into a parts car. However, another guy I know looked for his loose wire for two years.
Sometimes, my connection with machines has been uncanny. I rode my bike fast over a very rough trail, with my watch taking a major shaking from the handlebars. I was hanging on so tight that my fingers stayed half-curled when I stopped for the view, so when my watch strap failed, it just dropped it into my hand. I wanted to use up the back tire on that bike, but I bought a new one and left it at my store. The old one blew just as I arrived there two weeks later. I used a weather balloon as a liner for an inflatable. The store had said it was plenty big. It blew about ten minutes after the event. Then, I made a polyethylene liner, taped together. Three years later, the taped seams just fell apart, but not until after the annual event.
 
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Fino said:
Sounds more like nostalgia and a dislike for change than empathy for objects, which would probably constitute a delusion.
Click to expand...
I literally feel empathy for objects, even for objects I don't own or have ever been attached to. One time my grandmother didn't want this old wicker chair they had, and said my grandfather could chop it up. I yelled "no, don't chop it up!" She asked why, and I sheepishly said "well, I feel sorry for it." Then she said "it's only an object." That's true but for some reason I seem to see feelings in objects.
 
Museums and heritage buildings are about people's reverence for things. Around here, farms often display the machine that first made them prosperous. Old cars sometimes sell for more than they cost new. "The Mary Ellen Carter" is a song about some sailors salvaging a fishing boat because she had saved their lives so many times. Stuffed animals or even baby blankets are sometimes worn threadbare. A very badly traumatized man found his old blankie, wrapped himself in it, and finally got enough sleep again to begin his recovery.
 
Erosion.

I feel a deep pain in my heart when a hillside is graded for development, or a lazy rancher uses a tractor to rip out all the topsoil in order to get rid of weeds.

The earth scars, the rivulets, the flooding, the exposed subsoil and rock and broken roots. It breaks my heart.

I feel great empathy for the land and the animals now living exposed, unprotected. The future of that land where there is no topsoil or vegetation protecting it.
 
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