wound 2

(follow-up to http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/07/wound.html)

"Err on the side of expressing your humanity."
-dr. jane aloyius o'mccorkleschlatt

A friend has told me that i must snap out of my wounded mindframe...a mindframe which has been dwelling in me for three years, with roots far deeper.
So i must talk about sadness, and other emotions.
There is a category of being called drives...chief among these are lust, hunger, being in love, and pain.
There is a second category of being called attitudes.
In between these two, lies emotion.
Drives are the wind which compels us. They are in our blood, and we are not their master.
Attitudes are the willful manifestation of our personality. They are the chosen...superstition, pacifism, racism...whether we choose them, or have them thrust upon us, we must consent to their presence. They are our spirit's rudder and anchor. We may steer our course, but sail we must. If we anchor ourselves, the tension from our drives remains, the anchor chain vibrating in the very fiber of our being.
And emotions...love, sadness, joy, fear, gratitude, anger, loneliness...are formed of the intersection and union of the first two categories. They are defined and created by the first two, yet their nature is unlike either.
If someone tells us we must snap out of a belief, all that is required is for us to become convinced our belief is wrong.
If someone tells us we must snap out of a drive, they speak from delusion.
If someone tells us we must snap out of an emotion...it is entirely possible for us to do so. Most of us fail to grasp how much our emotional states are a product of choice. For those who lack understanding, emotions are often granted the status and force of drives. We use them to justify our behavior.
It is the nature of human social interaction, that we must be able to control our emotions.
But any emotion which is buried or redirected or deferred...the vibrations of these events exist in the core of our being. When we play god with our emotions, the fingerprints remain in our spirit forever.
Of playing god, i know a very great deal. From adolescence to young adulthood, almost a decade, i shaped and squelched my emotions with godlike tenacity and control. I played with happiness and sadness, inflating one and denying the other. The happiness i manifested was real...those vibrations are forever a part of me...yet the manipulations underneath created psychic vibrations no less real. I used my emotions to shape my reality...they were me, but not the entire me.
Having in youth known only control, i set forth on a journey to free my emotions. To learn how to feel them...without shaping or denying or regretting, to simply feel and experience them. This is a road i still travel, ever fighting anew for free and unfettered joy, or sadness.
Most are uncomfortable with sadness, in themselves or in others. In and of itself, this is a loving and necessary and productive response. But too many have a bias against sadness, and treat it as an enemy. Sadness is no enemy. Without sadness, joy will have no meaning. Without emptiness, love will have no focus. When sadness comes to you, treat it as an honored guest (if i've just quoted kahlil, please pardon or thank me).
Having played god to my emotions for so long, a little part of me cries whenever i am forced to do so anew.
Allowing our emotions to be free helps us understand what we are. Were i to banish my sadness, i would lose that which it can teach me. Sadness will leave, when it must. But how could i banish my sadness, when for so many years it has been largely absent in my spirit? Inasmuch as i have a nature, happiness seems to be one of its strongest vibrations...so how could i turn my back on this chance to understand the mass of humanity who are not like myself? Inasmuch as happiness seems to be of my nature, is it not ludicrous to try to impose that state...nothing beyond the next few seconds of life is guaranteed, but if i continue, the odds say that in happiness will i be found.
In the meantime, emptiness spits my heart out on the ground, and commands that i walk on...were i to stay huddled by my heart, protecting it from the cold, it would slowly die, and fear would have one more victory in the world.
But if i continue on, embracing my sadness and emptiness, only then can i find others who might know and hold my heart.