In a way, being a Highly Sensitive Person is unfair to others.
We can more easily appreciate and perceive value in culture. We are easily moved by music, art, and literature. I am thinking of this because of the Bach/Saint-Saens mashup I just listened to from my last post. It was so touching that it continues to stay with you. Sometimes the impact of culture on HSP is so profound that we have to stop and absorb it and deal with the feelings that they provoke in us. It is a pleasurable feeling that no external pleasure can match.
People who aren’t sensitive to culture miss the most meaningful parts of life. There is a love that we can have towards ourselves and others. Then there is a love you can have for mankind and the contributions from past authors like Bach/Saint-Saens. Being able to enjoy those works of art time after time is a pleasure that doesn’t change with time. It doesn’t lessen, unlike our love for physical pleasure or food. Those can be ruined by our inability to taste or be healthy enough for physical pleasure. If anything, love for culture grows the more you hear it. The more you realize that if it wasn’t for the genius of these individuals our collective lives would be poorer.
When I worked for very rich people they had so many incredible things. I know because I worked with them at their homes and so on. However, they were profoundly unhappy. Afraid of losing their wealth, afraid of a thousand different things. When we have material things it directly reduces our ability to appreciate culture. When you have the choice of physical pleasures vs cultural pleasures most people pick physical pleasure. They want to be active and not have FOMO. However, the cultural pleasure of sitting and listening to the best of humankind is something that can never be taken away. There will always be free museums, concerts, and so on. Humankind is rich in cultural gifts, even if physical pleasures become harder to enjoy.
I consider myself lucky to be an HSP. I shared before how I noticed the beautiful sunrise in the remote mountains as I was driving and looked at it and felt a joy. We naturally every day feel happiness and joy because we exist. We don’t have to look for entertainment, life is entertainment. We don’t need trash/materialism because those things only separate us from what is valuable. We know how others feel and can verbalize it to those we love easily. Life isn’t a mystery to be solved, but a continuously expanding experience to enjoy.
This is life as an HSP and if you don’t feel this, then being more sensitive might help you.