Today some friends of mine were making music, and, being the mix of odd, poetic, and philosophical that I am, I was sitting there dancing in my seat, enjoying it, and wondering why people love music so much: all at once.
We had also just eaten a glorious meal so I was thinking about food too. I had just met this new person and I was trying to make conversation with him so we started talking about food and music. Being the weirdo that I am I asked him if he liked food and music and he was just like "Of course I do, everyone does." But it got me to thinking: Why is this basically true?
What would life be like if you ate to stay alive? What if you just researched the most healthy diet and then ate that all the time instead of eating what you are in the mood for in the moment or what you just always enjoy? What if you never listened to music? What if you only owned animals for practical reasons (food sources/ transportation/ mouse killers/ security guards etc.) but not for bonding purposes, and what if you also only had friends for practical reasons? What if your friendships were like: I'll help you, and you'll help me but we will never just enjoy one another's company? What if you never did fun activities to rest, and merely had naps for the practical purpose of re-energizing yourself, but not to actually enjoy your down time?
Does this life sound nice to anyone at all? I really doubt it, BUT WHY? After all it is a very practical life. It's efficient. You could be healthy, live long, and be energized to do good practical work to make the world better in a practical way. So why does it sound like such a sad life?
Maybe it only sounds sad to me. As much as I am an analytical person sometimes, I'm also extremely emotional. I feel everything so deeply, that's actually why I think so much, because everything matters to me so I want so desperately to understand it. It's caused problems for me because most people I know are either extremely analytical or extremely emotional and many have trouble understanding both aspects of me. But, for me, life is something to be enjoyed and to be enjoyed deeply. These little things are layers of loveliness and little graces that make me happy.
I have often heard people tell me that it isn't wise to base decisions or beliefs in emotions because emotions are fleeting and changing. When I'm sad I've also been told that I need to accept life's tough situations and some how rise above my negative emotions. This never made sense to me because I feel like happiness is just so wonderful I wouldn't want to live without it, and to me it is intrinsically linked to negative emotions. Now I'm not saying we need bad times to appreciate good times. That idea gets flaunted a lot, but wouldn't you still enjoy chocolate ice cream even if you had never tasted broccoli? To quote Judith Guest I guess what I'm trying to say is "People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile." Maybe I only feel this way because I suck at rising above the negative times. To me it seems that if we don't allow ourselves to feel deeply the pain and anger of life it will be very difficult to deeply experience joy, peace, and love. I could be wrong. Maybe it is possible to feel peace in the bad times: to just carry on and not give into the pain without actually numbing yourself to the point of not feeling the joy, but if that is possible I am not there yet.
If this wasn't the case though, if we needed to feel the bad deeply to enjoy the good greatly, would you rather be fully emotional or fully analytic? Would you rather just be practical and think about things without feeling them? Would you rather just not be affected emotionally and not revel in enjoyment?
I guess all I'm trying to do is ask why do emotions always get such a bad rap when they are so beautiful, and why is being emotional seen as a bad thing when very few/none of us would really want to live an emotionless life????
I don't understand.
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