"But when everything, every single thing is strange, it takes forever to make things familiar." Bradbury

This is a great quote from one of Bradbury's short stories. He's writing about life on a different planet, but it struck me how this is sometimes true when reading what certain people write. You read a paragraph, but your frame of reference is nil. Perhaps it is a technical area in which you have little or no expertise, or perhaps you're reading about an environment that is completely new to you with new, complicated vocabulary. Or it could be someone's way of expression that is so convoluted that you have to read what's written several times before you move from what was strange to a level of understanding. It could even apply to a political point of view that seems so strange that it is hard to make it feel familiar.

Anyway, I like the Bradbury quote, simple at first in how it's stated, but really reverberating in the depths and very applicable to a variety of situations. I would say that empathetic capacity involves a willingness to make the strange, familiar.