Why do they quash their emotions?
2015/08/13 11 Comments
I feel an inner urge to express what I see, to communicate and share with others all these impressions. Often the things I see are there, not yet manifest, but waiting... to be observed, talked about, and embraced.
These new insights need another approach, a more vivid curiosity...
Due to fear and prejudice we prefer to see only "the official" truth - but THE OFFICIAL TRUTH IS DEAD - being dead, it has nothing to give...
We can continue pretending Death is fascinating or... we can take the trouble to LIVE...
THE NEW has no definition yet...
Again, IT requires another "perception", the courage to apprehend everything differently, from a totally new angle, with new confidence and inquisitive touch. This blog is not about interesting concepts, it is about participation... finding new solutions, inspiration, togetherness.
11 Responses to Why do they quash their emotions?
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Julien Matei
Mirrors of Encounters 
Your post, Julien, takes me back to my own days of focusing on “other” people’s lives rather than my own. Even your style of writing is representative of my once intellectual meanderings. I no longer care what other people are doing. The most worthwhile way I can benefit others is to work on myself.
Damn. Julien’s post stirred up the Hesse in my head. And, Michael, your ‘observation’ brought this to mind:
“Every person’s life is a journey toward himself, the attempt at a journey, the intimation of a path. No person has ever been completely himself, but each one strives to become so, some gropingly, others more lucidly, according to his abilities. Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant. Many a one is a human being above and a fish below. But each one is a gamble of Nature, a hopeful attempt at forming a human being. We all have a common origin, the Mothers, we all come out of the same abyss; but each of us, a trial throw of the dice from the depths, strives toward his own goal. We can understand one another, but each of us can only interpret himself.”
― Hermann Hesse, “Demian”
Nice, TBS, you have stirred a desire to re read one of my all time favourite writers/thinkers. Hesse was one who encouraged me to embrace my own suffering – invite it in and let it be what it will – a concept that was (then) alien to me but which relieved me of great consternation at a time when I was ‘groping’ as you so nicely put it. I value the input of others immensely as Krishnamurti says so many times – that we are all in relationship. I don’t have any expectations of others and accept whatever comes – sometimes not easily – especially as some have a way of getting under your guard and challenging you with issues you thought were dead and buried. I know we all share a social and historical conditioning and therefore a strong relationship with the primal which bonds us in sympathy and urge to freedom and this is the reason I cannot give up on humanity nor myself – though there have been times! I make friendships then I don’t know what to do with them as I value above all my own loneliness which seems to be my guiding star. The writers, poets and mystics I have most felt attuned to have generally been solitary such as Nietzsche whom I most admire. Anyway, enjoyed your post and out comes Demian from the library.
How I love Demian. Probably even more than Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game
“A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to committ outrages…”
“How absurd these words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they’re much more right than men…They’re never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don’t flatter and they don’t intrude. They don’t pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
I don’t find these words at all absurd. I once took a ‘trip’ that carried me way back and then slowly forward through evolution and the cellular and the animal kingdom. I didn’t understand the depth of what I was experiencing at the time other than a connection to all life (perhaps as well as I may have gone mad) 😉 Suffice to say I now realize relationship and am in awe at nature’s Isness. My dog is a constant source of nowness and unpretentious simplicity – a far cry from the falseness that my fellow humans are conditioned to adhere to (not that I am free of conditioning – I still get found wanting many a day on this ‘intimation of a path.’)
Michael.
Thanks for sharing this.
I’m not sure I have a right to call anything madness – to what do I compare? I am convinced many a “psychotic” though unaware of the essence of their visions, were seeing through all the absurdities that we live daily. I’ve been ‘over the edge’ and glanced back at so called sanity and it’s a very isolated landscape where humanity seems to be sleepwalking. Why would one even attempt to make contact? The beasts love/live life to the fullness and i bow to them, as i sit on the edge twiddling my fingers wishing I could be as unbound as they 🙂
Yes, Michael. I think you and dear Hermann are both saying the same thing with different words. Perspective. Beautiful.
The absurdity to which I ‘hear’ HH referring to is the relegation of other animals to a less-than status by labeling them as ‘mere beasts’ or ‘terrible’. The beasts do not know embarrassment…they know how to behave themselves without flattery, intrusion, or pretense.
Deep connections IS madness — at least in a comparative sense. It indeed is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society (Krishnamurti). I surrender and accept the mad sickness of maladjustment.
Wonderful that your dog ‘instructs’ you. =)
Peace…
Indeed. Thumbs. Interesting.
Thumbs up to me – I am quite comfortable sharing my own human experiences – some find me more than interesting 🙂