In Praise of Thin Skin
Meryl Streep, Empathy, and Art
It’s something I’ve been mulling over lately. Then, Meryl Streep touched on it during her speech-turned-takedown of the President-Elect, and I knew I needed to write this.
Here’s what she said & why it struck me:
An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like.
See, I was always a sensitive kid. Embarrassingly quick to cry. Even now, I’m a soft touch. (Every two years, those P&G Olympics commercials kill me).
Growing up, it was my biggest liability: “She’s so thin-skinned,” teachers would say, “She needs to toughen up.”
(I hid out in nurses offices and libraries instead. I read.)
I’m an adult now. I get it. If I’m being kind, I say “They were worried about what kind of life someone like me could have, someone who feels the world’s pain a little too acutely.” We all know the world is a hard place and that life is harsh and uncertain.
But if I’m being honest, I say, “Maybe they were more concerned that my quick tears came from bruised pride, that these were the hallmarks of an unchecked ego about to blossom.” We all know someone like that, right?
What I wish, is that they saw my sensitivity as a gift. After years of fighting against it and trying (and failing) to “toughen up,” I certainly view it to be that now. Let me explain.
As a fiction writer, my job is similar to that of an actor’s. I make up a story, adding in details with each pass, borrowing from little moments in life to enhance how believable my story is. Like Meryl, I thieve and steal. I cobble it into something new.
In fiction, I pull on a character to discover worlds outside my gender, physicality, mental capacity, belief system, and economic status. I look out through their eyes (as best I can), then I burrow deep inside them, study them, try to find what makes them tick.
In short, my work teaches me something new about the world. It surprises me every time.
We’re hearing a lot right now about “thin skin.” Particularly how certain public figures react (over-react) to criticism. How they lash out following scrutiny.
But while we use the same words to define them, they’re not the same thing.
Most of the people we call “thin-skinned” are actually the opposite. They wall themselves off from the world. They become so locked in their own ego that they forget there’s a rest of the world out there at all.
They are the ones who lack resilience, who fight against change. They can be brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, bosses, friends.
They are the ones we walk on eggshells around, the ones we live in fear of angering, or work tirelessly to earn even the tiniest scrap of love.
They are awful and exhausting people to be around. And like most awful and exhausting people, they suck all the energy to them. They make life worse for those around them.
But what about the others? The ones we label as over-sensitive?
Often, since we are so burnt out from interacting with their ego-maniac counterparts, that we discourage those who show signs of sensitivity. We tell them to toughen up, to ignore the suffering, to focus on themselves.
Exhausted by the monsters of our daily lives, our very recommendation is behavior that creates the monsters in the first place.
But there’s beauty in being thin-skinned. Embrace it if it means the membrane between you and the world is permeable.
Understand that sensitivity, real sensitivity, shouldn’t be a dirty word.
Realize that it is a gift to feel for others, to understand the world, or at least try to.
Celebrate it when you see it. Encourage it in art & business. See others. Live in the world you inhabit. Foster Empathy.
