By M. Brandon DeGeorge
Martial arts movies would have you believe that emotions are typically bad in most situations. In order to master the art of, say, Kung Fu, one must transcend emotion so that only the form of the art exists. Emotions are just another one of those annoyances that can get in the way of the true self. Luckily, we are only talking about movies--make believe--here. Emotions are just like water: they are part of us, and we need them to survive.
If we can learn how to use emotion, learn why we feel certain things at certain times, then emotions can become more like a sixth (or seventh, depending on how you count) sense. We know, of course, that anything we use to learn, e.g. to grow, is helpful to our idea of transcendence. Emotion is a connection we have to ourselves that is unlike anything else. When we feel love, we know that the feeling is (most of the time) a positive one. When we feel hate, we know that we are reacting to a negative stimulus. It's the conclusions that we draw from our life experiences that we can use to gues-stimate other answers to the things we feel.
The more we know about our emotions and about ourselves, the more we'll know about how we fit in. (And we do fit into our environment, just not how people would have us believe we do--or don't). When we see that big picture of ourselves in the world (a major step and a major bonus), we get a huge sense of belonging and relief. Everyone wants to belong. Everyone wants to feel self-worth. Transcendence could be the key.
The main problem with emotions is they're internal, and so are we. When we feel emotions...it's what we're feeling at the present time. This is where that "martial arts" thing could come in handy. Idealistically, of course, it would be very useful to observe ourselves as we slide through the course of emotions. Realistically, however, this is very difficult, if not impossible, to do at the time when we're experiencing an emotion. Emotion clouds our judgement. Think about it: if we were able to transcend something like depression, do you think we'd ever be depressed again? No, because we'd be able to see the positive side (if there is one) of the problem, or we'd be strong enough to handle anything that came our way.
Talking is a good thing, you see. Bouncing ideas off others is good. This is the sharing thing that I keep bringing up. When you give, you get, and in this case you get a whole lot. Emotions can ruin our perspective of a situation, make things very inaccurate, make us blind to what the real truth of the matter is, and that makes us react inaccurately in return. As long as we can keep our heads on straight by getting the real view, we can forge a straight path through life. If we can do that, then we will not have regrets.
Siwrnai dda.