So I read this article where researchers determined that humans are losing emotion...or rather, we are failing to express emotion (based on a survey of literature) as much as past authors, poets, etc.
http://www.naturalnews.com/039608_emotions_literature_culture.html
Don't believe it? Think about the great love stories of time gone by. Boy sees girl across the May Day Feast. One glimpse, one flutter of eyelashes, blushing cheeks, and he's gathering whatever wits he has to approach her family about a marriage. Sonnets have been written, ballads sung, entire epic quests have been launched, based on love at first sight.
Does that happen now? One word: prenup. I, for one, do still believe in love at first sight, if you're prepared to deal with your and your partner's families and friends treating you like you're insane. I think society has shoved it down our throats that relationships must be constructed over an extended time period according to a very specific set of rules in order for it to gain "validity". I don't think so. I think you can exchange correspondence and then meet someone whose combination of intellectual, physical, and emotional attributes makes your heart and stomach flutter and you feel as though you'd leap mountains for them. That's just me, though...
Anger? Display it and you have an "anger management problem". Sad? You're depressed....take some meds. Happy? You're senile, crazy, or "unstable". Free-thinker? You're a dirty hippie and need to straighten up and conform.
Yes, I can completely see how society is making us lose emotion by making us shove it down, bottle it up, and try to pretend it doesn't exist. What do you think?
I absolutely agree that modern society is discouraging emotion and has been for years. I come from a long line of emotional people (or so my mother tells me) and have struggled my whole life with people telling me I'm "too depressed," "too emotional," "too passionate,"- that I need to "calm down" and there was something wrong with me because I was "too sensitive."- I was boxed into a helping field because that's the only place an emotional person can work right? Wrong. But lately as I'm discovering how to embrace my true self and realizing that I'm proud to be touch with the most fundamental side of humanity. Emotions are seen as weakness in a society that praises uniformity and control. Why do you think that when people refer to "humanity" of something that they referring to how it affects them emotionally- how it makes the rest of us humans feel! Emotions guide our decisions whether we like it or not. Many people choose things like jobs or school or mates out of fear because they don't want to appear different to the rest of society. I say there will always be people like us who aren't afraid of society's judgmental glare. It's what makes us human.
ReplyDeleteLove at first sight- maybe can happen. We are definitely getting away from that. Well, getting away from love in general. But I think love is something that grows over time. You may have some sort of connection with that person because you were together in a past life or their energy meshes well with yours.
Anywho- that's my 2 thousand cents! -A