Saturday, May 06, 2006

Logic over Emotions !!






This was a very sentimental article which I read in WSJ .

A female of the age of 96, is very vulnerable and fragile, but she
still insists on living in a house which she and her husband had build
decades back. You tend to think, it doesn’t make sense for a person of
this age, who tends to have memory loss, who cannot walk properly and
who is really so fragile, that she should live in this house, even if
it means, living alone, than to move with her son, who lives some 6
hours from her place. But that’s where the life takes a turn.

We sometimes, ignore or crush the feeling over logic. We tend to follow
something which seems logically correct, scientifically appropriate and
economically viable. We feel that emotions, feeling make people weak,
they have no place when making decision, they looks good only in the
soap operas.

But are emotions so useless or cheep. No, emotions are the most
important part of any living creature, be it human or other species.
Emotions are stored as an integral portion in our memory and we make
decision based both on logic as well as emotions.

So, coming back to the article, her son had make numerous desperate
attempts to bring her to his place, but all in vain. She had lived a
long life in this place, she knows and remember each and everything ,
every stone, every piece of the furniture and the memories of the
house, her husband , her children, her friends. She has a huge world
inside this, a world which contains almost 70 years of her life.

Does she really care if she falls from the stairs and probably die? No,
she has lived her life with great zeal and doesn’t want to end it with
some pity. She would be happy to die in these memories than in some
nursing house, among unknowns.

This is the power of emotion and feeling. You live a social life and
the emotions are integral part of it. Then why do we hate it so much?
Partly because they have been derided by our TV serials, and more s by
the fact that we do not have a logical conclusion to these emotions,
they make our decision-making fragile, they make us look like an
un-confident person.

I feel, we have, over decades, started to suppress our emotions and just show our creative and logical face to the world and that’s why , we watch so many movies, music, because these movies/music help us cry and shout and scream which we are not able to do in our so-called normal life.

I guess, we have started having a pent up frustration against this world and everyone around us. We tend to look at the most of the negative things, we make very feeble human bonding, which can be broken at the click of the fingers. Its not that we do not talk much, in fact we talk far more than our forefathers, but we do not share feelings and emotions, and its more prominent in the males, because emotions are mostly attributed to the females. The males are expected to be strong at heart and brain and somehow, it comes to holding your emotions to show a strong front.


But , with this career centric life, and desire to do something big, its encouraging more and more people (men and women) to suppress their feelings and show a creative and logical outlook. But it is leading rise to more commotion in our social life, where also, we tend to follow the same dictum as we do in the corporate world.

Its time to do something, to start expressing our self better, and by expressing I mean the quality feelings and emotions, not the melodrama queen types. Else, we will become a closer semblance to the robots, both of them running on some rules and logics like an AI system and the word emotion will be wiped out from our dictionary.

15 Comments:

Blogger starry said...

Sometimes you are happy in your own environment.To her this was home.I think living on your own gives you a sense of independance . and I think that was what the old lady was clinging to.I think maybe that was all she had left.Emotions did take over the logic,but is that wrong.

8:42 PM  
Blogger Vaikunth said...

very true. However there is always logic behind any emotion only thing is you have to empathize. From the old ladies point of view whatever she is doing makes pure logical sense forget emotions.

2:40 PM  
Blogger ~*. D E E P A .* ~ said...

just read the mid life crisis post , and this one too .....

itz more than independence inthe lady's case ... it was independence and self respect as well

11:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

She was to attached to the house and also the emotions attached to this house.It too much for her to break through.She might feel very attached to this house at this point of time but the question is,will she be able continue the same in future.Maybe she might, maybe she might not.Lets see a situation.God forbid, but say if there is an accident as mentioned in the article, she falls down from the staircase, she gets hurt and may become unconcious.There is no one to help, she remains in the same position for hrs untill she gains her conciousness. If this situation arises and maybe by luck she gets help and survives, will she remain the same house again with no one to take care of her? Yes, maybe, if the attachemnt is to strong, but practically is this correct?On the other hand think of the old woman's son, after this kind of an accident,if she comes and lives with him its fine. But what if she is stubborn? The son will feel guilty - "I can't take care of the person who gave me birth and endured so much pain". She never thought of her son's emotion.Is emotion one sided, or is it for only for the one's who are dead, or is it for the past only? The answer to this question tells you which emotion to follow. There should be a balance to everything.

I see here that Anil, is a Yogi (as the blog name suggestes), so i would like to give this dicussion a bit of spiritual touch.
As everyone knows, the base emotions of every being(almost)are Krodh,Kaam,Mooh,Bhoy etc(sorry for using Hindi). and these same were told to be controlled by our ageold sages.Here comes a simple question, if we control these base emotions don't we turn into robots?What is the difference between a stone and ourselves? But were these sages trying to turn the whole humanity into robots? The thing they preached is the answer to the whole article.They told to conquer your bad emotions and go ahead with the good emotions. Again this Bad and Good depends on the situation. So there is always a balance and limit to everyhting. Too much is not good for anything , even emotions.

4:21 AM  
Blogger Thanu said...

did ur tag :)

8:22 PM  
Blogger Sarah said...

I know a woman, who could have travelled around the world..but chose not to. Her world was different, a small house in the middle of no where. She lived and died in that small house. I remember asking her to come and visit me and her response was what if i die there in your house and not in my farm?

11:23 PM  
Blogger SeePearrl said...

yeah i agree...!

Expressing oneself is the best expression! Though its difficult initially...once you start expressing ..you will feel how joyful and lighthearted you feel when you express waht you feel!

10:02 AM  
Blogger Scoot said...

yes,reminds me of a granny who is staying in my house.She is constantly depressed ever since she was taken away from her ancestral home.there was no one to take care of her there.But she would have been better off there with some assistance I feel cos now she is always talking about dying or committing suicide.
hey,am reading autobiography of a yogi too...but really slowly.SOme days I read only two pages.It's an amazing and enchanting book

3:54 PM  
Blogger Blue Athena said...

Poignant.

Like the new template!

12:30 AM  
Blogger Rose said...

"Emotions are the most
important part of any living creature, be it human or other species.".. Cudnt agree more..

Very touching...

:)

..Me

5:31 AM  
Blogger Krak said...

Tuochy! I was ever so confused about my feelings and emotions and now I am even more confused!

7:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Please publish THIS at your blog. They might get some help.

7:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

New post. Now time to write new post.

2:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anil, you have hibernated for a long time. Wake up!! NOW!!!

2:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its time to do something, to start expressing our self better - Like showing off about where we studied, how it rates out there and how much it costs in our profiles?

1:07 AM  

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