The Guardian for this meeting was Rosatta Resident. The comments are by Rosatta Resident.

Rosatta Resident: 's current display-name is "Rosatta".
Rosatta Resident: Today's suggested topic is: The difference between empathy and compassion and pit.
Rosatta Resident: pity
Rosatta Resident: Well, since no one else is here, and it seems silly to post an empty log, I guess you all get to read my thoughts.
Rosatta Resident: So, imio (in my ignorant opinion) what is the difference? I should start with definitions - at least the ones that reside in my head.
--BELL--
Rosatta Resident: Pity, it seems to me, has strong overtones of one person being superior and the other inferior. This isn't always negative, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with it.
Rosatta Resident: Pity also has strong connotation of mercy in its best form.
Rosatta Resident: It also has a connotation of action - in that the one feeling pity will be compelled to do something to help if at all possible
Rosatta Resident: Compassion, for me, has all the good qualities of pity including mercy and action, and is free of any sense of superiority/inferiority.
Rosatta Resident: Empathy is the ability to understand another's experiences and emotional responses to those experiences. At it's deepest level it is the mutual understanding that comes from a shared/common experience - like women who have had children and their understand of the total experience from conception through childbirth through raising them; or cancer survivors; or scuba diving enthusiasts.
Rosatta Resident: Empathy doesn't have to be on the level of compassion or pity in that it can exist in good shared/common experiences as well as difficult experiences
Rosatta Resident: Empathy is what allows humans beings to connect on an emotional level.
Rosatta Resident: Writers of fiction, what ever the medium it will appear in, have to create empathy for their main characters in the reader/viewer. If these characters are strange then it is the writer's job to develop them so that they are fascinating enough to stay with them until they become familiar. Then empathy can develop and this is what makes a story memorable - other than attacking with negative things like horror and disgust, etc., of course.
--BELL--
Rosatta Resident: A note of apology for missing the Saturday 7 am session after promising I would be there and the Sunday Guardians meeting. I haven't been feeling well and I slept through my alarm clock both days. I am truly sorry for being so undependable.
Rosatta Resident: Closing session 6 minutes early as no one else has come.