Some seem to have trouble grasping that emotions are even needed.  In reality they are vital.  Without emotions we would not know on the most basic level what is good for us.  True, one can talk about someone making rational decisions.  But they are made based on goals which can’t be decided without emotions.  However, the person deciding the goal might not know about this.  Far too many have never learned to understand their own emotions.

Nearly all humans are capable of feeling all emotions.  For each emotion there is a small number who can’t feel it.  They are simply born that way which I view as an inborn deficiency.  Otherwise, it varies individually in which situations an emotion occurs.  Anyway, we can’t choose never to have specific emotions.  A common way of avoiding an emotion is trying to avoid situations triggering this emotion in oneself.  In some cases, this may work.  But if the avoidance creates problems one has to ask if it is worth it.  If not, one has to gradually get used to what triggers the emotion.  Then one can learn to handle the emotion more or less being there.

Unfortunately, there are a great deal of people hostile to expression of emotions.  They believe “controlling one’s emotions” means never expressing them.  It can be specific emotions or emotions in general.  Both of these variants are harmful.  What happens when emotions are not allowed be expressed under any circumstances?  They will then just be bottled up and result in maladjusted or outright destructive behaviour.

I think the attempts to get away with emotions are actually about guilt by association.  Emotions are so strongly associated with actions the emotion is mistaken for an action.  However, feeling something is not the same thing as acting in a certain way.  People can act in different ways based on the same emotion.  It is constructive alternative actions which we have to learn in order to handle our emotions.  Not entirely avoiding the emotion since it can’t be done after all.

Uploaded on the 15th of December 2023.