I read recently that someone who can master their own emotions is a very powerful person. On one hand, I agree completely: I am very much a slave to my emotions, which means I have strong oscillations in my headspace over a day (within the same day, I can feel excited to go home and exhausted when I get home, extremely bored in lecture and then intrigued in an article, detesting my playlist to emotional coming across some vestige of my childhood in a music form). Would I be better off without such strong emotions, or by knowing how to better manage them? Yes, part of my agrees.
On the other hand, my emotions (or lack of emotions, when I’m feeling numb) are the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Manufacturing the prospect of something exciting happening or the fear of being late to a morning obligation are two examples of this. To dampen my emotions might not make me feel sane, but lost.
Which state is better? I’m not quite sure. I also don’t know if this is just the way an immature person going about living their life, and if there is a point where one gets somewhat impenetrable to oscillating emotions. I know, for example, that I no longer get the same buzz when starting a new job or course of study. It felt like a rite of passage to realize that my world wasn’t trying to tailor itself around this new core activity, but that I’d rather be continuing my life while trying to fit my new obligations into my life. I feel more secure this way, because I feel like I am more in control. This isn’t to say that I know all the proper steps, but that I trust I can adapt them (if I care enough, of course).
While I’m rambling, I’ve thinking about being displaced/where shared lineage can come from. Having graduated from university, I am finding it so difficult to be okay with the systems and communities I knew just continuing on without me. No matter how much I wanted them to continue to thrive, I feel forgotten. More accurately, the feeling is like mistaking the slow pace of a conveyor belt for a permanent home only to discover the belt has now spit you out the other end.
Culpable: to be morally blameworthy, guilty or responsible for something.
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