How can you have compassion without pity?

I listened to a few clips of Watts, and I did like a lot of what he said. Since it's bits and pieces, the advice or wisdom is not always clear from the onset.

He was talking about everyone being the same on some level. Us humans. And that if we could all know eachother, we would forgive eachother and feel less ashamed.

I think his point was to make clear, that judging, shame and regret are not useful to have of other people anymore than yourself. And we should strive to accept ourselves, and trough that we can accept other people.

That sounds like a good goal. I notice that I wallow in self-pity a lot, but I rarely have compassion for myself. But usually when we talk about virtuous behavior, we often think that pitying people is a good thing. So if you treat yourself like everyone else, pity is not useful and it can be a big detrement. Pity might be the opposite of respect. I think some of my thinking is influenced by reading some Meditations by Aurelius.

Compassion seems like a good thing. You should have it for yourself and other people, and possibly living things or beings. But it is hard to seperate sometimes. And I think often they come hand in hand.

I think pity requires some sense of superiority to a subject, and compassion could maybe be neutral. I am not sure a neutral emotional state exists, so maybe it is based on inferiority to the subject. Don't know. But humility seems a lot better than pride. At least for the most part.

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I will probably order one or two of his books, the next time I am going to buy some. Then I will get a more full picture of his thinking on a subject.