> [Original Message] > From: Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Date: 4/30/2006 10:24:34 PM > Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Tune in and turn off > > AA: > >>As a society we're taught to ignore emotions or to use only "approved" > >>emotions. << > > I've never been a society, so I wouldn't know. > > Well, I have been a society, so I do know. > >>Generally speaking, men are not allowed to feel fear or sadness, but anger > >>is acceptable.<< > > I've never met a man not allowed to feel fear of sadness. In fact, every > man I know has felt fear and sadness and often and wouldn't hesitate to > admit it. > > Yeah, well, that's in Memphis. In the rest of the world things are different. > >>Women are, generally speaking, not allowed to feel anger, but fear is > >>acceptable. << > > I've never met a woman not allowed to feel anger. In fact, every woman I > know has felt anger and often and wouldn't hesitate to admit it. > > Not one person I know likes to talk about emotions. Not family, not friends, nobody. I was talking to a woman I worked with who went on to have cancer surgery. We were in the ladies' room and she said to me, I feel like I could cry and cry. I said, why not? Nothing feels better than a good cry. She said, oh no, I couldn't. But, in your life they all talk about emotions. It must be that Southern air, talking about emotions and lynching people, you know, indistinguishable. > >>So a man feels fear and converts it to anger.<< > > Sometimes, yes, just as women do. Racism and xenophobia and class hatreds > are often the product of just such machinations of the mind. > > And racism and xenophobia are so rampant because people are so in touch with their emotions and don't displace them onto others. Did I get that right? > >>A woman feels anger and converts it to fear.<< > > Not being a woman, I can't say how true or false this statement might be, > but I do know a lot of women who sometimes convert their anger into rage. > I've known termagants, harridans and shrews. I've known women more venomous > than Lady Macbeth, but like I say, I can't personally testify as to how > women in general deal with their anger. > > I think you're describing what I'm talking about. People take a relatively short lived emotion and turn it into hysterics and/or a mood, i.e., something long term, like shrew or harridan. If they had a clue what they were feeling, the feeling would not turn into a personality style. > >>Both sexes convert sadness and/or anger to lust (hence the popularity of > >>porn).<< > > Really? Hmmm. Lust has never seemed to need any help from anything as far > as I've been able to discern. It rises phoenix like from the groin fires > all glorious and resplendent wholly on it's own as far as I've been able to > discern. Sadness and anger would serve to diminish lust would be my guess. > > Mike, why do people say fuck you when they're angry or filled with hate? Why do people give each other the finger? > >>Likewise panic attacks are ways of expressing submerged thoughts and > >>feelings and emotions, as are obsessions, and arguably phobias. << > > Perhaps or perhaps they are symptoms of a chemical imbalance in the brain or > neuronal lesions or disease. I suspect those causes much more strongly than > suppressed bad thoughts. > > If people are all so aware of what they're doing/feeling, then humans are evil and let's end the discussion here, there's no hope. Of *course* brain chemistry is behind it, but thoughts/emotions drive brain chemistry. Even a smile will change the chemistry. It's the chicken and the egg. > >>An emotion is just energy. Blocked energy causes trouble. The trick is > >>letting the emotion flow such that there are no regrets afterwards.<< > > I honestly don't know what this means. I assume it has meaning to you, but > the vocabulary is alien to me. "An emotion is just energy" -- well, yes, > but then everything is just energy, isn't it? "Blocked energy" -- how does > this occur physiologically? > It means that emotions are energy. They are not thoughts. They're in the primitive part of the brain; they hook into adrenaline and other fight/flight and related chemicals. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to hold back an emotion. That's why people who are depressed are often tired. Their immune systems go down. What is energy? You tell me. It's what allows you to write this post, etc. > Ah, well, I don't know anything about any of this, I just wanted Andy to > know that not everyone agrees with his pontifications. > You're the spokesman for the Enlightened Ones out there so in touch with their emotions. That's why you're denying all this stuff. > > Mike Geary > Memphis > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html