Warning: Personal rant next 5 miles.
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Sometimes I wonder why the hell it is that we have emotions. I mean, apart from the fact that emotions make life suck about half the time (on average, assuming you have equal ups and downs), it seems to serve very little purpose. After all, humans are supposedly intelligent beings. That's our niche, and is one of the factors that separates us from most other animals. But emotions are nothing but hinderances to rational, intelligent thought. In other words, the presence of emotions in humans run contrary to our nature.
Sure, I know what you're thinking: "But that would be horrible! Without emotions, we might as well be robots!" To that, I ask you this: Does society treat you any differently? Can you skip work because you're feeling down and feel like sitting outside on a bench? Maybe if you call in sick (by which they would interpret physically sick), or if you could get a shrink to sign you off as crazy, but otherwise probably not. Or how 'bout the opposite. Can you skip work because you're in love and you just want to spend the day with someone? Err... sorry, bud, no, unless it's some socially endorsed occasion for celebration, say, a wedding (or you can come up with a more legitimate excuse, like, being physically sick).
In both examples, I used physical illness as a "legitimate" excuse to be unproductive. That is, our physical existence is fully acknowledged, and its deficiencies tolerated. However, our emotional existence and its deficiencies, are not. Or to put it simply, catching a cold is normal. Getting depressed to the point of being unproductive, is not.
So, for a "normal" citizen in a society like ours, emotional stability is valued higher than physical fitness.
Emotional stability. What exactly does emotional stability mean? What does stability mean? Here's the dictionary definition:
- Resistant to change of position or condition; not easily moved or disturbed
- Not subject to sudden or extreme change or fluctuation
- Maintaining equilibrium; self-restoring
It appears that literally, emotional stability means to have as little emotional fluctuations as possible. So, don't be happy, and don't be sad. Just be. Sounds like a catchy commercial, but when you think about it, that's just another way to say "don't have emotions". Pursuit of happiness? That's marketting bullshit, and you know it.
Assuming we can think of society as a collective of individuals, apparently we all want to be emotionless (so, my original sentence is now justifiably a normal thing to say). All that remains is to actually do it. And to imagine how wonderful life would be! Probably significantly less violent crimes and hate crimes (although perhaps an increase in so-called white-collar crimes where calculated gains outweigh any consequences). People will actually vote for politicians based on merit, and feel no remorse in voting them out should they fail. Of course, nobody will bother fighting wars that aren't worth fighting. No more disgruntled workers, since at the rational level, everybody recognizes the importance of hard work, right? No more complicated relationships (or any relationships for that matter), no more grief. And the best of all, you won't have emotions, and you won't even be saddened by it. The ultimate in emotional stability.
So why hasn't it happened? Part of it is that in certain aspects, emotions are still valued (obviously). Even though your emotional existence is all but ignored in the public social space, emotions play an integral part in personal relationships. Personal relationships are what drive procreation, therefore, humans do not evolve beyond emotion.
Hm... I need to figure out where I'm going with this rant. I'll stop for now.
Posted Mon, August 23, 2004 01:29 by Josh Marquis
I feel ya Ryo, but seriously drink 1-2 gallons less of coffee :) The key to happiness is stupidity, stupid people are always more happy; they don't see that the world is going to shit around them.
For the rest of us, there is alcohol and denial. I've found da'nile is quite nice this time of year, grab your canoe.
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