I love humanity but I can't stand people
The news can move you to tears. A donation goes out without a second thought. Then a colleague sits down too close and eats too slowly, and something in you tightens. The two feelings live side by side, and it is hard to say which one is the real you.
The line usually gets credited to Peanuts. It is older. Dostoevsky put it into the mouth of a doctor in The Brothers Karamazov.
A doctor's confession
In Book II, chapter IV, "A Lady of Little Faith", the elder Zosima retells what an old doctor once told him. The doctor loves humanity and is surprised at himself. The more he loves humanity in general, the less he loves anyone in particular. In his dreams he serves the whole world. In real life he cannot share a room with anyone for two days.
He does not say people are bad. He says what they do to him:
"As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom."
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book II, ch. IV, tr. Constance Garnett
What the person nearby takes
Look at the reasons he gives. One man eats his dinner too long, another blows his nose. These are not grievances against character. They are what a body does when it is actually there.
Humanity never does any of that. It does not sit down next to you or chew. It cannot come close enough to disturb anything. That makes it easy to love: it asks nothing of your freedom and never touches your picture of yourself.
A real person does both just by being in the room. The doctor is honest enough to name what he loses: his self-complacency.
Feeling that nobody sees who you really are is a different question, and it has its own page.
What the novel leaves
Zosima answers the doctor, but he offers no method. The question stays with the reader: what in me does a person touch when they come close?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.