We have mistreated emotions, for so long.
As a world, we built systems that have no basic understanding of our emotions. And what we don’t understand we ignore. We have put them in a sack and thrown them over to the part of the alley nobody visits. We have restrained emotions to movie halls and Netflix screens.
I have an incessant need to fix my emotions. Find a quick reason why the internal being is crying about and do something so that it will shut up. Shut it up so that I can move on with my life.
The world wants my hands, eyes, ears, my intelligence. It wants me to fill empty pages. It wants me to build the Lego blocks. But for a moment I spend time with my emotions — no, I am wasting my time.
There is no space for emotions in what world defines productivity as!
Emotions run us, emotions are our source of energy. Emotions are where our best creative ideas come from. But emotions are too mushy for the world. When was the last time you talked about your feelings with somebody?
Even when we do speak, we focus on managing our feelings, not exploring them.
Our school system wants us to listen to teachers and learn about the world. Emotions? Well, that’s for therapists to advise you on. One of the most common things in our lives — and there is only one profession which the world trusts to help you with!
The systems of today, have stigmatised and isolated emotions. We have built a world where getting distracted is common. We have built a world where building things to distract people is rewarded. We have built a world where we can talk about anything in the world except our own feelings. We have built systems that incentivise us to look away from our emotions.
We are incentivised to look away from one thing that can add any meaning to our lives.
We are supposed to chase things and get things done, all the time. One thing that can give us a clue about why we exist and that one thing gets the least priority in our daily order of lives.
When we think of emotions — what picture do we get in our minds? Crying? Fear? Joy?
Emotion is our intelligence. It’s the way for our bodies and minds to guide us in this complex world. Instead of exploring, we are managing it — like a health condition. We have reduced an entire system of knowledge to few actions and reactions. We try to control an ocean of intelligence with our rules and frameworks and do’s and dont’s and blacks and whites. We name our emotions, identify immediate reasons and get done with them.
Emotion is a story that narrates itself. Only if we were to listen. Only if we were to delve deep. Only if we were to give our eyes and ears and noses to it.