Emotional Anaesthetic
“Feel the feeling but don't become the emotion; witness it, allow it, release it”
— Crystal Andrus Morissette
The moment a conversation breaks, everyone gets out their phones. If we have to wait for something, phones. Anytime there’s nothing immediate to occupy us, or we’re alone with ourselves, that’s what we turn to. It’s our companion in any moment of mundane transition. Phones, just like their precursors and successors, are syringes. Endless supplies of emotional anaesthetic. They are dulling agents, hypnotic antidotes to the discomfort of self-reflection. This is not an issue with phones, it’s an issue with us. We are, willingly, out of touch with how we feel. It’s not fun to feel some things. At this point, boredom is barely bearable.
So you’ve just punched a hole in the dry plaster wall of your room. Let’s talk about it. You did that for a reason. It might have been a stupid reason. It’s almost certainly a stupid action. But that reason exists, and it does so with such undeniability that it can drive you past the cliff of sanity. At their core, emotions are information. They are flags for something. Sometimes, they’re an endorsement, a “yes please, more of this!” Other times, they are error messages, an “oh hell no!”
Action without emotion is avoidance. You’re denying a voice to the positive emotions that might be telling you to move in a different direction in life. You’re shying away from the darker emotions that keep telling you that something is off, and has been off for a long time. This path is the one of unprocessed information. It’s ignoring customer feedback for your business, except you’re the customer… and the business.
Emotion without action is stagnation. You’re feeling, everything, and letting your emotions have their day in court and plead their case but you’re not coming to a judgment about them. Or maybe you are, but you’re not doing anything with that conclusion — you’re not doing at all. A negative emotion points to a problem that needs to be solved, so solve it. A human being ought to be a human doing too.
Emotion with the wrong kind of action is chaos. Now we’re back to the dry plaster wall that needs to be fixed, or have a painting hung in front of it. You lash out, or withdraw, or turn to coping mechanism that obscure the truth you need to stare down. This is a path without a path. You’re directionless.
Emotion with the right kind of action is the ideal. This is a state of self-alignment. Emotions are irrational, random and untrustworthy, but they always tell a truth. It’s up to you if you want to hear it or not.
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You know… I was looking at the phone (funnily enough) whilst doing smth else. Saw the time. And thought: “Nathan’s article could come in…” I got back to what I was doing, and a moment later phone really notificates me of you delivering that article. 😃 I can predict the future! 😂
As for emotions… yes. We should pay attention to those. But to a certain degree. And as illogical as it sounds, we should examine them by… logic. As you said, they do deliver information, but, I think, a lot of times people run with the initial feelings caused by them. Act upon those initial feelings. Reacting before even really thinking. Actually we need to give ourselves a little time to let it sink and decide what happened and towards what we had a reaction. It’s not easy. And it sometimes takes a long time. And it’s messy and unpleasant. It’s easier to scroll through the phone and, perhaps, buy a new thing.
Taking the phone probably is the easiest thing to do in order to distract oneself. 30 years ago probably people were more into distracting themselves by smth else, it’s just hard to imagine it these days. In fact, when it’s too much of feeling and thinking my mother always suggests to do smth and distract myself from all the mess, if the chaos in the head regarding examinating emotions and events is too much. But, I guess, in my case that’s already the opposite of what you’ve written about. With that being said, I think, there’s the right time when to take that phone, book or wte in order to distract ourselves, so, this reality doesn’t kill us. And there’s the times when we should avoid that… in order to acknowledge that reality. If that makes sense…