Many Americans have been trained to believe that feeling is a form of labor, perhaps the most meaningful, while practical help only fixes symptoms. When a child feels the natural impulse to give a panhandler money, we tell them, if we’re stupid, that he only wants it for drugs, or, if we’re slightly less stupid, we recite a certain platitude about men and fish. (It’s hard to pay attention to a fishing lesson if you’re starving, just as it’s hard to ace the ACT if you haven’t eaten or slept.")