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From: pooh@ut-sally.UUCP (Pooh @ the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Responsibility for emotions
Message-ID: <2628@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 00:20:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2628
Posted: Fri Aug  9 00:20:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 00:58:10 EDT
References: <508@ttidcc.UUCP> <485@oliveb.UUCP> <684@lll-crg.ARPA>
Reply-To: pooh@ut-sally.UUCP (Pooh @ the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 64
Keywords: emotions, human-potential

In article <2624@randvax.UUCP> edhall@rand-unix.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes:
>
>But I think the point [Mike O'Brien]  makes later in his 
>posting is worth amplifying:
>
>> Human potentialists are
>> the lamest bunch of people I've ever seen when a little quiet sympathy
>> is wanted.  Maybe I don't feel like turning my life around today!  Maybe I
>> want to have a little help just "having" my emotions, till they run out!
>
>Amen!  Having a good cry, or pounding a wall, or simply moping around
>for a while are all very human, very natural reactions.  And willful
>control of the the emotions behind them is no more natural than willful
>control of digestion, blood circulation, tissue regeneration, or
>whatever.  All this talk of ``responsibility'' is silly.  So far as
>``responsibility'' implies control as well as causality--its usual
>interpretation--it should have little to do with ones feelings.  In an
>abstract sense, at least, I ``cause'' my emotions.  But ``controlling''
>them--except in the limited sense of controlling emotional *behavior*
>within reasonable limits--is a sure-fire way to become an emotional
>cripple, inhibited and, at bottom, lifeless.

You put it very well, Ed, better than I can.

>
>I'm not just speaking of what might be called ``excessive self-control''.
>Prolonging an emotional crisis through willful ``play-acting'' is just
>as pernicious--it is the latter that the human potentialists rightly
>condemn (though they often ignore the pernicious nature of some other
>forms of self-manipulation).  Self-pity is at least as bad as self-
>inhibition.

But you must be very careful here in condemning someone as
being "self-pitying."  One of the problems that I see with
most of society is that it won't tolerate grief, depression
or other "unpleasant" emotions beyond a certain point.
The day of a funeral, people will let you have your grief;
but two days later, you're supposed to "get on with your
life."  On the crisis center phones I very often get callers
who are still working through their feelings, but who have
lost all support from their friends and family--they feel
uncomfortable with the caller's emotions and want to rush
him out of them as soon as possible.

>
>Life has its rhythms.  Our organisms have an incredible amount of
>power and inertia that are simply beyond the reach of our controlling
>wills.  If we work to create the illusion that this is not so, we do
>so at our peril, as it can only be done by forcing off much that makes
>us human.

I think it was Rich Rosen who suggested the theory that
those people who insist that they are in charge of their
lives simply can't handle the thought of NOT being
in control of something.


Pooh

pooh@purdue-ecn.ARPA    pur-ee!pooh

"If there is a God, He will reward you; and if there
isn't, then who has been playing all these games
with Jacques Kohn?"  -- Isaac Bashevis Singer