In languages that derive from Latin, 'compassion' means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathise with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, 'pity', connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. That is why the word 'compassion' generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered a inferior. second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.
In languages that form the word 'compassion' not from the root 'suffering' but from the root 'feeling', the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion - joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.
~The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
Somehow i like the 2nd definition more. it's a very thin line between romantic love & compassion. i can live with both, but compassion can pretty much wear you down in time to come 'cos you are fulfilling others' need and not yours. i have very high ideals of love and and therefore great expectations of a lover. i am aware yet i find myself volunteering for love death penalty time and over again. i see trouble yet i flirt with it to test my limits. i do things that may seem unneccesary to others (which sometimes they may be) 'cause my heart tells me to. i carry things that are heavier than i can manage; i pick poison ivy just to see how they intoxicate me. i run into walls wherever i turn and that's b'cos i built them. nobody breaks thru them; i am an island myself.
