As I'm turning onto 10th street, a couple blocks from home, a car pulls up beside me and honks -- it's the talky college guy from the gas station. I roll down my window.

"Define Apathy for me," he says.

"Not caring," I reply.

"Now, empathy, that's where, that's..."

"That's feeling it yourself," I say.

"That's where you care a whole lot, right?"

"Yes," I reply, "Apathy is sorta the opposite."

He thanks me, and drives on.

Stuff Derek already knows but they (apparently) don't teach in college: apathy is an antonym for empathy which is similar to but not exactly the same as sympathy. then you have to consider that in medicine, the suffix "pathy" means disease -- rather than feeling or suffering. I could further belabor my point by going on about 'telepathy' or even the etemology of 'pathy'... but I won't. *tomorrow's word: sarcasm

--pero , 10/12/2004 03:08:21