The strength to be good

Recently I've been pondering a complicated topic.
The kind of person I am has an easy time understanding others, if I really want to. However, the price of it is something that I've never really been able to carry. As a result I've become cold, or at least learned to act as if I were.
In order to listen to someone there are 2 ways. One of them is that you simply don't care, in which case they may blabber about whatever as long you get your selfish gain. But this isn't really listening. It's only in order to fool those that are already hurt enough as is.
The other way is really caring and putting aside your own thoughts, so as to focus on how they think and how it makes sense to them. Not judging is crucial.
However, judging is a defense mechanism for us all. It's easier to keep a distance from someone if you judge them and this distance matters at least to some degree.
Think about how horrible it would be if you cared personally about every starving child in Africa. Or about the thousands dying in war zones. Or the victims of domestic abuse. Or the socially neglected in depression. It would be unbearable, so we don't do this. Instead we pay for this by constructing a world view that does not reflect reality. We lie to ourselves, but we believe our lies, because they make it easier to live.

However, illusions are not the only way to cope with truly caring about someone. The only good way that I know is having been through the same problems as that person and having surpassed those things. If you really know how to solve a problem for yourself, you become invulnerable to that same problem in other people and this lets you really care about them without being hurt by their issues. Not that it would be easy...