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emoting


I just finished reading Frankenstein. I love the style of the classic fiction writers - so emotive and descriptive. I really do not see it as a frightful tale as so many have made it out to be, but one about responsibility and choices. What stood out to me again (as often does when I read fiction in this genre) was the way the characters respond physically to an emotional stimulus. We think that odd in our scientifically-absorbed world. Upon hearing bad news or seeing a shocking sight, it is not uncommon to faint and develop a fever that lasts several months - if you are in said story, that is. In one case, after the news of a family death, the person died a few days later of an apoplectic fit, or brain hemorrhage. This seems odd to us today, but I fear that we might have a tendency to separate the body from the rest of the person far too easily.

I admit it. I have been known to go on emotional roller coasters as I am quite an emotive person and tend to feel things deeply and react strongly to various stimuli. I am beginning to discover that some of this is due to physical causes or unresolved issues and while the emotions are real, they can be misleading. Even so, they cannot simply be changed by modifying the outward stimulus or situation. It goes deeper and wider than that. In my quest for emotional strength and healing, and vice versa, when I seek for physical strength and healing as well, I must consult more than what my eye can see, what my body feels, what my mind knows, or the mood of my soul. I am one, a whole person whose spirit, soul, and body are intertwined in such a way that each part affects the other. I cannot compartmentalise myself. Contrary to some avenues of reason, emotions are not weakness. They are important signposts that let me know something is going on that requires attention. The wisdom comes not in rationalising the emotions and keeping them under control, but in placing each part of me in the right perspective and letting one part inform the other so that each can function as it was meant to do. I think of my emotions as the mechanism that signals me that something requires attention, and then I must engage my mind to figure out what is going on, and my will to accomplish the proper response.

Easier said than done, but I'm working on it.

This are the hands of my mother and myself after we had our first ever mother-daughter manicures. Lovely!
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Anonymous said…
Lovely.
11:49 PM
Shelley said…
Much like pain alerts our physical body that something is wrong.

Good thoughts. For me cravings and avoidance are strong signals that something is going on...
6:56 PM
shane magee said…
frankenstein is a BIG BIG favourite of mine!! genius. should be re-categorised though. so many people don't read it simply because it's a "horror" book. the same with the entire "fantasy" genre. g.k. chesterton says that the truest things we can know are not to be found in science, but in childrens' fairy tales.
9:01 AM
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