Emotions

“Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions.”
~ David Borenstein

Mr. Borenstein would have considered me absolutely lethal.  I didn't just rationalize them, I totally unplugged from them.  On Facebook a few of my friends have had distressing things happening.  Deaths, disillusionment,  and fear caused some of the distress.  They didn't want to cry or feel sad or...since when is it a crime to mourn loss?  Oh yea, since the 60's instigated the "feel good" movement and everyone is trying to reach a constant feeling of bliss.  I follow a few posts myself on ways to be happy.  Unfortunately, the swing of opinion went right past reasonable over to "You may only feel good or you are a loser."  Through some tough life experiences I learned to unplug from my emotions.  Watching Mr. Spock as a teenager I worked at emulating his character of no emotions.  By the time I was in counseling, I had succeeded too well.  I also learned if you are going to climb a ladder in life make sure it is leaning against the right wall.  Not being able to connect to my feelings is not a good thing.  Someone on facebook commented how they would not want to feel any pain.  Sounds nice on the surface.  Here's the kicker...If you feel no pain, you don't know when to protect yourself.  To add insult to injury, showing love gets cut off too.  Tears can be a welcome relief, one that I struggle to be able to do.  Emotions take a gray world and make it rich and beautiful.  Sorrow hurts but a picture looks odd without the dark colors.  Anger is uncomfortable but it lights the fire of determination.  Grieving hurts but there was love to feel the loss.  Take it from a pro that learned to totally shut off emotion...it sucks.  Reconnecting slow and painful, bewildering, and fabulous.  Some days, I feel like I am packing a lifetime of feeling in just a matter of a few years.  Right now, I am feeling sad.  I learned recently that I have some tough challenges ahead.  I tend to withdraw and not communicate when I am hurting.  I appreciate people that reach pass my facade of "everything is hunky dory" and see the person that is struggling.  I kind of like thinking about the StarTrek next generation character DATA, an android robot whose quest became to be able to digitize emotion.  He could play a musical instrument with absolute precision but it lacked feeling.  The pauses, flaws, and nuances that take mechanical notes to the height of moving emotion can't be produced by a computer.  Humans weren't born to be emotionless.  What happens to a person to remove emotion is cruelty that is not outlawed.  No one can legislate emotion.  I am an advocate of feel it, live it, and let it color your world beautiful.