Transcript
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another DailyJim. Today's Thursday, March 14th, 2024. And today I am going to talk about emotional life versus emotional death.
Now, I've been thinking about how a lot of people in my life seem to want to feel less. They want to just kind of be more calm, casual. This is from women that I've dated, but just people that I've interacted with professionally, personally, politically, lots of different things where it seems like a lot of us become so afraid of feeling that we want to just stop the feeling. And it shocks me. I'm like, "Why aren't people more afraid of being numb? Why don't people feel more afraid of not feeling?
And I wonder, you know, I think about when someone passes away and they say, well, at least the person is no longer in pain. Yeah, but the person's also no longer in joy. They're also no longer in excitement. They're also no longer in bliss. They're also no longer in anticipation or gratitude or tenderness or warmth.
And maybe this is a little heavy for some, but I think about when my mom was in the ICU, her hands started to get more and more cold. I felt the warmth leaving her body when I went to the funeral.
To feel my mom's body when it didn't have any warmth through it when it was just cold, for me that's the that that is the physical death it is the emotional death too it's how many of us are striving to be cool and calm and collected and we just, we're afraid of being warm we're afraid of getting hot we're afraid of the pain, But with the pain comes love, with the pain comes joy, with the pain comes so much vibrancy in life.
And I ask myself, what do I do when people in my life are like, you know what, just leave me alone, just let me be, I just want to. And then I talk to them and they say they feel empty on the inside. And they don't seem to mind in some way. Because they're so afraid of the pain that was happening. Without realizing that pain doesn't, pain is just part of it. The pain is actually keeping us alive. You know, if I have a cut, the pain says, hey, pay attention to me. Make sure you heal me because if you don't heal me then we can be in trouble the fear keeps us alive i just, i've been asking myself this question a lot because it seems so many of us, are afraid of living we're really afraid of of the emotional life, the ups and downs, the twists and turns, which a lot of us see as love. Being in love brings so much of those unexpected feelings.
Yet, we don't seem to be that afraid of the opposite.
And I wonder, what do I do? If someone is so terrified of that way of experiencing life, frankly, living life, and I'm here, vibrant, feeling, excited, loud, sad, angry, all these different feelings, maybe just really tender. That can really frustrate people who are terrified of that and who just want things to be really calm. And how much, how can I selectively turn it off for some people?
It's something I've really struggled with because I'm asking myself, is it more loving to meet somebody in their indifference or in their hatred, but often their indifference, or to meet them with love, even if they don't want me to love them or they don't want me to love somebody in their life or they don't want me to love an animal maybe, like they hate spiders. Oh, spiders are bad. But no, it's a spider, man. It's trying its best to live. Ah, but they're icky, disgusting. It should die. What? Come on. How much do I meet them where they are at their level of indifference, versus trying to pull them in the other direction? It's such a struggle for me sometimes and I wonder if other people are struggling with this.
It's like if somebody is so afraid to live they're more afraid to live than they are to die, should I just say okay that's fine like I accept it to accept it in a way is almost me becoming more afraid to live too, more afraid of the reactions that they're going to have, the emotional outbursts or whatnot.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't really know the answer. It's something I just wanted to reflect on because I think so many of us, I think frankly, a lot of our desire for peace comes from this fear of love. And our desire for peace comes from the fear of pain. And I'm just, aren't people afraid afraid of dying more than they are of living? And what happens when people become more afraid of living than dying? And do we just accept it? Do we just accept a society where people in our lives just are waiting to die physically or emotionally, or are actively hoping to die because the pain of life is too much?
You know, I still go back to that, you know, when somebody says, well, at least the pain is gone. I'm like, yeah, but you know what? So is the joy. So is the excitement. And I want the pain with the joy because I recognize they go hand in hand and I'd rather have that than have neither.
So maybe a bit morbid conversation, but for me, this is.
What do we have left if we don't have that what's the point of living if we're not really going to live and really soak it all up so as you hear a car maybe zoom behind me who knows i don't know how my audio is sounding right now but i'm going to go out and try to stay dry from the rain even though if i get wet i get wet you know what happens but uh all right i don't know if this made any sense. I hope it resonated with some of y'all. I'm going to think about it some more. Take care. Have a good weekend. .
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