DNO2 Emotions

Dear No One, I have paused my writing even though I wasn’t really writing much and taking this moment I saw an opportunity to be real. So what’s real with me, or why put myself here to write an open letter. Well it’s simple I began to feel defeat again. At least that’s what I call it. I could just as easily label this feeling sadness, or maybe discontent, or maybe discomfort. Let me tell you where I was when I started to feel like this. The day has been sunny and hot. I had the fortune to gain another day off and so basked in the luxury of my life. I mean this seriously. Though working class as an American I have so much that I’m quite a wealthy individual considering the world as whole. Moreover than that I live in one of the most beautiful and wealthiest parts of the US. So yea I have a luxurious life, even if it’s not the life of the Jones ( or I guess I should reference the Kardashians). Now I sit on my front porch and read almost always with a cup of coffee regardless of the time of day. Today I had been reading Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, so it would not be unreasonable to think that a strain of the melancholy Dane tempered my mood. Indeed as I read the book I find thoughts which had been dormant in my mind illuminated by Kierkegaard’s prose. It was at this point that I began to feel that feeling that so often upends my days. No One I began this letter because I really needed to understand what the hell is going with me. I want to call this feeling something, this feeling like sadness but not quite. I did not want to call it just another emotion because it emanates from my heart but resides in my mind. But maybe that is what all emotions are. So in this effort I begin by examining what was on my mind. Memories and thoughts, should I detail them? I actually don’t think I can since they were random and passing quickly. But another thought came up. What if it’s not the memories themselves which stirred these feelings but what those memories reflected of me. No One how often do we sit in rumination, circling around a memory of what was said or done and questioning ourselves? A younger me struggled to escape those mental pit traps so I trained myself to let go. What I’ve been able to do is accept the irreversibility of past actions; what’s done is done so why waste the time thinking about what you wish you could do different. Well that’s good so then what am talking about now? Well another form of foolishness. Rather than sitting and wishing I had done something different, I am looking back and wishing I had been someone different. It’s the other side of the same coin. I may think of my younger self and want to change the kid I remember because then he would do something different, take different action, by virtue of that change. Well sure but then that kid would not become me. And regardless that kid is gone already because he’s already changed and grown into me. So what the hell is with this melancholy? It seems to me, No One my closest friend, that this is part of being human. In a recent conversation with a friend we discussed emotions coming up randomly. I shared my perspective, my belief that the mental energy created by negative and positive emotions do not leave us unless we channel it. If you ask me to explain further I must first admit my nascent understanding. The only example I can offer is with myself and anger. Should I get angry and just ignore it, bury it as people say, I may stop feeling it but the negativity will remain in the mind. Even if unconsciously held this negativity will “color” the view I see the world in. I believe this holds true for every emotion. Ok so how is this overcome? By acknowledging, observing, and then releasing the feeling. So first I accept what I’m feeling, I do not try to deny it in any way, or tell myself I’m stupid for feeling it, I just acknowledge it. I also acknowledge that no matter how bad this may be now that it is not permanent and will pass. To observe is just that— observation; feeling it, letting it be but not inhabiting it, or holding on to it. I do not tell myself that this is my life now or that this is just the kind of person I am. I observe what I feel, emotionally, mentally, and physically as if I were a researcher taking notes on the effects of this emotion. I even describe my experience to myself but without reference to myself. This means that I will say in my mind, “this is a sad feeling” as opposed to saying “I’m feeling sad”, “the body is lethargic”, “the brain is tired”, “he is feeling defeated”. It may seem incredibly odd to do this but my purpose is to not identify with those feelings. Again I acknowledge that they exist, I observe them, but I do not identify with them. To make this clearer image yourself with a cold. Now you may say something like, “ yea I’m sick with a cold” but you do not make that cold part of your identity, you do not expect to have that cold forever. Emotions are the same like a cold they sort of infect the body and mind but they come and go. Releasing these feelings, I believe, occurs of itself once they have run their course and lose their strength—as long as one does not identify with them. And I think that this is where I was. As I said I believe that the mental energy created by an emotion remains until it is dealt with. These memories were “colored” by emotions a younger me did not know how to release. Thus when the memories came up again the un-dealt with mental energy arose as well but not the feelings. The feelings had run their course but the mental energy reminded we what had once been felt, thus why I felt a “little sadness” and not the depressed feelings of long ago. So I acknowledge that I’m feeling a little bothered, I also acknowledge that I may not fully understand why I feel this, and further acknowledge that’s it’s ok to not understand. I observe that the mind seems blank, that there is a touch of disappointment within, that the brain is tired. And then I let it go, I remind myself that I and life go on and this is only little sickness that will pass. That No One is my attempt to not let the past drag on my present.