I think it’s better to be rational than emotional.
When people tell me to let my emotions out, they are literally asking me to become emotional like them.
That would be pulling me down on their level.
I am not without emotions. I simply do not express them the way many people do.
For example, the way my family does.
This calmness is precisely that which allows me to retain positive memory of the most negative experiences in my life.
I find it distasteful when people speak negatively of their suffering . . . when they express a great deal of hope of it never coming back.
That’s what emotionalism does to people.
They become unable to relive their memories.
The problem I have with emotional people is due to my experience which thought me that emotional people are very likely to interfer with and obstruct any kind of serious attempt to resolve the problem.
In other words, their emotionalism creates additional problems.
It’s not simply people crying that annoys me.
It’s the fact that they are very likely to mess things up.
When your loved one is dying and you’re crying, you’re making it difficult for them.
My grandma said the same to my mother two years ago.
Okay, but simply denying emotions is not healthy either; repression can act like a slow acting poison.
Ok. I suppose different people have different breaking strengths, but surprisingly, these things are not always clear cut. The final straw that breaks the camels back could be anything.
Well, I think it’s only natural not to want to relieve such memories; otherwise you might risk becoming a masochist or obsessed with suffering. The problem with thinking you’re stronger than what you really are is that it may lead to a type of coping delusion of sorts, in other words, you really have to know where your true limit is. Sometimes, before something breaks it will bend first, and that bend is not always noticeable. (I’m talking about repression of actual emotions that should be acknowledged and let out).
I am trying to apply your reasoning. Do you mean like pulling a plug on terminally ill family member? Or euthanasia?
I understand, a sick/dying persons wish. Many sick and dying people want to make light of the situation, but I can’t say that it’s easier on the ones who have to live with it. Some may call it a selfish reaction, but to others it may be a proof of deep attachment the degree of which is very difficult and painful to break.
Holding back emotion is not the same as not feeling emotion. If you’re holding back emotion, the emotion is still there and interferes with your rationality all the same.
Furthermore, emotion is essential for rationality. Without emotion, nothing would matter, including being rational.
Repression means you are failing to predict how your body will react.
In other words, it means you are not rational enough.
An example would be when you tell yourself you are going to spend your entire day working only to see yourself losing interest at some point (say due to some kind of worry.)
That’s what happens when your goals are unrealistic.
Or as you say, when you don’t know your limits.
It is emotionalism that creates problems of this sort.
Not reason.
What do you mean that repressing emotions is an example of emotionalism itself? What would be the state of non-emotionalism? Just not feeling anything?
I mean that when you repress some emotion it’s always under the influence of some other emotion.
In other words, whenever you over-express something (i.e. when some emotion is too strong) you always under-express something else (i.e. some other emotion becomes too weak.) And vice versa.
I don’t know what it means to feel nothing. You always feel something.
The choice is between consonant/rational feelings and dissonant/irrational feelings.
Not between feelings and no-feelings.
It’s the shape or arrangment or configuration of feelings that we’re disputing here.
Not feelings themselves.
It is unknown to me what exactly consonance/dissonance refers to but one sound way to explain it is as a degree of correspondence between what we want or expect (our plan or model of reality) with what happens in reality.
You can say that each time before we act we form a plan, an idea in our head, as to what kind of sequence of events we want to occur.
Once the attempt is made and outcome is observed we either feel consonance, which indicates that what we wanted to happen happened, or we feel dissonance, which indicates that what we wanted to happen did not happen.
It’s more precise to say we feel a degree of dissonance based on how much of what happened corresponds to what we wanted to happen.
This nicely explains why we feel confident when we are in control of our body.
Bodily movements are one of the most common movements that we make and when they are not in tune with our commands, when our body does not obey our commands to a near-perfect degree, then we feel significantly less confident as our body constantly bombards our brain with negative signals.
I don’t buy this. Some people repress with distraction, with imperatives, and you are telling me that there is an emotion under their directives to be preoccupied which take precedence over their being involved in the moment? Whatever would that emotion be…simple fear?
How do you know when your emotions work in harmony with your rationality? We always think we’re being rational, so even if our emotions conflicted with rationality, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious.
You consult your inner self.
Your inner self will tell you “yes” or “no”.
How does an artist make his choices?
He consults his inner self.
He asks “is this more beautiful than this?”
The inner voice responds “yes” or “no”.
Consonant or dissonant.
He can’t explain to you the logic of his inner self.
He can’t explain to you the exact mechanism that determines what is more and what is less beautiful.
But he does finish his job – he does make a fine piece of art.
Without knowing “how”.
If you bypass your inner self, you bypass the filtering mechanism.
You become whimsical . . . you start doing whatever comes to your mind.
No processing whatsoever.
The deeper you process your choices, the more rational they become.
That’s the formula.
And this processing isn’t purely left-brained.
Merely engaging your left-brain is shallow.
You want to engage your entire body.
Pull strength from all directions.
Not only one direction.
Magnus, your type of rationalization is quite strange, if I understand it right. You talk about imbalance and rationality restoring that balance but the way you go about does not sound natural. Your loved one is dying. You’re trying to stay strong (rational) and hold back your tears. Because your emotions are unbalanced (you’re sad), you should think happy thoughts in order to restore emotional balance. This is what to me you’re basically saying and to you, this appears like a logical thing to do in order to restore this balance of. Balance of feelings, or feeling vs feeling.
Is that right?
And to me, thissounds more like a denial because instead of acknowledging you’re just applying the opposite, or seesawing. It sounds like the happy/sad clown routine, which I don’t think really works.
No, that’s not what I am doing. It’s just that when a loved one is dying I am not merely sad but also many other things which makes it impossible for me to revel in sadness without repressing other parts of myself.
If you are bedside for this impending death, what other emotions would be present that you are repressing? Why would you be reveling in sadness? Reveling…really?
What you are doing is gearing up for the loss of their presence in your life, working through your helplessness, your inability to save them, protect them, and keep them with you. You may also be forgiving yourself for continuing on and forgetting their impact on your life so viscerally after they go. Sadness is mourning on many levels for the past, the present, and the future.
Pride/Shame? I think Magnus is kind of guy who just holds himself to high standards. (That would sound like Magnus, too, a little on the uptight-side; but I guess to each his own)
High standards are code words for unresolved, control issues. Perfectionism is damning and short-sighted, too many people with potential are written off too soon.