There’s a scene in Avatar: The Way of Water that captures why I feel disconnected from a lot of movies. Deep underwater, a young Na’vi named Lo’ak approaches an outcast sea creature named Payakan. They connect through Tsaheylu, a neural bond where their “tails” link. This allows them to share memories and feelings in the most literal sense possible. Lo’ak asks, “why are you an outcast?” and through this link, he instantly feels the creatures pain.
For a long time I thought my dislike for scenes like this was just me being a bit cynical. Though I think most people can tell when a movie is trying to “sell” an emotion in their gut. Rather than dismissing them as shallowness, this time I’ve decided to figure out analytically exactly why they bother me.
In James Cameron’s world every living thing is connected through a biological god-network called Eywa. It’s a beautiful yet romanticized version of nature that echoes the way we look at indigenous cultures; pure and spiritual. If we could just “plug in” and feel what others feel, we would achieve world peace. In this view, our society is falling apart because we don’t have enough empathy for one another. I think that is wrong. In fact, I’d argue we’ve never been more obsessed with “feelings” and “empathy” than we are right now. Yet we feel more isolated than ever.
The problem with the Avatar philosophy is the belief that you can truly understand someone else by just empathizing. You can’t. Take even the closest people in your life, you are still a separate person from them. You perceive their emotions through their words and facial expressions, however you aren’t actually in their head united with their soul experiencing what they experience 1:1.
Have you ever had a friend try to tell you about a vivid dream they had? They’re excited and terrified, but you don’t feel the same amount of awe, if any at all. This is due a breakdown in communication. It’s perfectly natural and expected of course, because you can’t squeeze the total complexity of a human life into a single sentence, facial tick or eye expression. Though we like to feel like wizards that can “understand” each other this way, it’s simply a method of communication just as if not more flawed than language. The point is, it isn’t actually practicing empathy, and to say so is arrogant because empathy is the state of feeling in your own body and mind the same feelings that someone else is experiencing and by assuming your internal reaction to their words or expressions is an accurate map of their soul you are cheapening their true internal experience.
Nothing has made this more evident than the advent of social media and television. When we see a video of tragedies online, we feel a sadness, but we aren’t “sharing” the experience of the victim. We are sitting in a room and reacting to a flicker on a screen and often alone. There is no other person involved in reality, the device is a mirage that confuses you into thinking anyone else is present. It’s in actuality a closed look where we feel our own feelings and tell ourselves we’ve empathized.
And this inward spiral is especially damaging for men and boys. We are currently seeing a cultural push that demands men focus evermore on their internal emotional states. The Avatar solution suggestions that if men were just more in touch with their feelings or more empathetic our societal problems would dissipate into thin air. But we are seeing the opposite. As the focus on emotional introspection has increased, so have rates of isolation, depression and suicide among men. By encouraging men to constantly monitor our feelings we aren’t helping ourselves connect with the world. We are ensuring we are trapped forever in a room with our own thoughts. For men, the path to meaningful existence doesn’t come from the pursuit to find a root cause to our issues by introspecting about feelings and emotions. Men have to look outward. We have to look at our competency, our ability to help the community and others by using our skill sets productively. To not just be employees, but to be entrepreneurs. To not just wade in the sea, but to build the foundations for others to stand on. To not just attend classes, but to teach others. To not just to read, but to write as well.
The irony of the aforementioned scene from Avatar is that Lo’ak asks a direct question: “Why are you outcast?”. He plugs in his braid to get the answer, but the neural link doesn’t really give him any insight, despite the fact that it was presented as a cathartic experience. What he sees is a montage of blood, explosions, and trauma and when he pulls away weeping he is convinced that he “understands” Payakan. But he doesn’t. He knows the creature is in pain, but he still doesn’t know why it was exiled. He missed the actual truth: that Payakan was cast out for leading a violent counter-attack and breaking the Tulkun code.
To break out of the isolation it takes more than empathetic introspection or sharing of sob-stories. Firstly, breaking out of isolation can never happen through the Internet. Secondly, real connection cannot be downloaded through the neural braid, it cannot be helped by having pseudo-therapeutic circlejerks and it absolutely cannot be forced through obsessive emotional introspection. None of these options will ever solve your problems. In fact, therein lies the issue. You should probably in the first place be more focused on solving other peoples problems rather than your own. Salvation lies there, in kinship and shared struggle between you and the ones you love, and sometimes the ones you dislike.
04/12/2026