An SG reader is struggling with the idea that only a small percentage of the population are emotionally exosynaesthetic:
I’m struggling with the idea that only a small portion of the population has that capacity.
Why? Have you talked to any actual humans lately? It’s much more likely that you simply don’t understand what empathy actually is.
Note that these five examples below are not definitions that cover the entire meaning of the terms and set limits on their applications, they are just explanatory examples meant to help you understand the differences between the concepts.
Empathy: I know how you feel in your situation. Chrysopathy: I know how I would feel in your situation. Sympathy: I feel bad about your situation. Apathy: I have no feelings about your situation. Antipathy: I feel pleased about your situation. Now think about how few people even bother to know what someone else’s situation actually is, much less have basic sympathy for it. Chrysopathy is the best that most people can do; because women are solipsistic they have absolutely no empathetic ability whatsoever and it is a very good thing that they do not.
“The bad (that is, uncompassionate] man everywhere feels a thick partition between himself and everything outside him. The world to him is an absolute non-ego and his relation to it is primarily hostile; thus the keynote of his disposition is hatred, spitefulness, suspicion, envy, and delight at the sight of another's distress. The good character, on the hand, lives in an external world that is homogeneous with his own true being. The others are not a non-ego for him, but an 'I once more'. His fundamental relation to everyone is, therefore, friendly; he feels himself intimately akin to all beings, takes an immediate interest in their weal and woe, and confidently assumes the same sympathy with them. The results of this are his deep inward peace and the confident, calm, and contented mood by virtue of which everyone is happy when he is near at hand.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer
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“The bad (that is, uncompassionate] man everywhere feels a thick partition between himself and everything outside him. The world to him is an absolute non-ego and his relation to it is primarily hostile; thus the keynote of his disposition is hatred, spitefulness, suspicion, envy, and delight at the sight of another's distress. The good character, on the hand, lives in an external world that is homogeneous with his own true being. The others are not a non-ego for him, but an 'I once more'. His fundamental relation to everyone is, therefore, friendly; he feels himself intimately akin to all beings, takes an immediate interest in their weal and woe, and confidently assumes the same sympathy with them. The results of this are his deep inward peace and the confident, calm, and contented mood by virtue of which everyone is happy when he is near at hand.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer