Leaning into emotion

A while back, a friend’s cousin died. He was young and it was very shocking to everyone in that social circle. I was talking to my friend about how the different family members were reacting. Everyone had their own way of trying to deal with the situation but the common theme seemed to be something like “upset past the point of usefulness”. Everyone was falling apart except for the deceased’s brother. His reasoning for why he wasn’t a mess like everyone else was something like: “I can’t. If I break down, then there’s no one left to rely on.”

There’s an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal and Lois are in an argument about attraction to other people. In the climax of the argument, Lois comes to the realization that Hal loves her more than she loves Hal. His response is: “I mean think about it. If you loved me as much as I loved you, we’d never leave the bedroom. Nothing would get done. We’d die of starvation.”

When my wife and I bought our first house together, I still had a long-standing fear of spiders that I inherited from my father. The house we bought was a spider haven and we quickly found ourselves overrun. My wife would run away from big spiders and I would pretend that I didn’t see them. It came to the point where there was a big spider in the bathroom and neither of us wanted to deal with it so we avoided going in there. “This is ridiculous,” I thought, “we can’t give this house up to the spiders!” So I got over my fear of spiders because someone in the house needed to deal with them.

Each of these stories hits on the same theme for me: leaning into emotion. When presented with an emotionally charged situation, I think it’s easier to lean into it and go with the emotion. If it wasn’t the easier reaction, I’m not sure you’d see things like riots or young couples in love making stupid decisions. I try to fight against that, and this seems to frustrate people.

In many emotionally charged discussions, I end up arguing against wherever the emotion is coming from. When people argue about how Clinton is a criminal, I argue that most politicians are and that it shouldn’t be surprising that she is too. When people argue about how Trump is Hitler and we’re headed for another holocaust/war, I argue that pre-WWII Germany was different than current US. These counterpoints might not be right, but I argue them anyway. This strategy has gotten me labeled sexist, racist, ignorant, stupid, classist, a pussy…whatever the epitome single-negative-label is for their opposition. I don’t argue against those people because I think they’re wrong and need to be corrected. I argue against them because, while the comradery of agreeing “Yeah, FUCK those guys!” feels good, I don’t think it’s productive.

I don’t find there’s much to be gained from living in an echo chamber. It feels good to get confirmation that you said something people agree with and it might strengthen your bonds to those people, but it just feels like ego-masturbation.

Having real opinions

It’s hard impossible to tell exactly what people think of you. That being said, I think many people think that I’m on one side of the fence. I have people calling me far too liberal. I have people calling me far too conservative. While I’m not comfortable with those labels, I accept them as an outcome of how I deal with emotional arguments. People that see me argue both sides have a different complaint that I either don’t have (or am I hiding my) real opinions.

One of the biggest problems in my relationship with my wife is that I don’t get excited about things. I think I understand why this can be frustrating. Simple things like her trying to figure out where we should go out to eat become a struggle. She’s trying to optimize our overall utility, and I’m not giving her enough data. Thai? Sure. Indian? Sure. Pizza? Meh. Burgers? Sure. She never gets a “FUCK YEAH!” out of me. I think this translates in her head to her feeling like she’s always getting whatever she wants and I’m slowly becoming a high-pressure resentment-volcano.

There’s just a lot of stuff that I don’t care about. This is reinforced by much of my current social group. I’m told quite often that any opinions that I might have on certain subjects are invalid because of who I am or how I was raised. I’m white so I can’t have opinions on race. I’m straight so I can’t have opinions on LGBTQ. I’m upper-middle class so I can’t have opinions on the poor. Male, gender-equality. Educated, rural life. Atheist, religious beliefs. Non-veteran, foreign military policies. Why should I spend time and energy forming opinions on these things when the people around me will just shut me down and say I’m not qualified?

Those around me

I have strong opinions on things that I have a lot of data for. I feel very strongly on putting a bumper cover on my cellphone because I’ve cracked too many screens. I feel very strongly on not drinking milk, because it makes my tummy hurt. However, for most things that fall to opinion, it feels much better for me to just rely on others.

When I was younger, this meant emulating my parents’ beliefs. I would take those beliefs to school and put them up against my friends’ parents’ beliefs. We would throw our mutual misunderstandings of the issues at each other and not really get anywhere. When I got into high school, other people starting having their own beliefs, I just kept stealing mine from people I respected. In college, in the face of all of these new beliefs in people that had so much passion and knowledge, my beliefs shifted a lot. But they were still piggy-backing on other people. I met and married my wife and, although she’d never admit it, my beliefs are fairly aligned with hers.

My simulation of people’s response when I tell them this is that I’m weak minded. That I’m easily swayed and not putting in enough thought of my own. That’s probably an exaggeration, but it’s what keeps me from being more open about it. I’ve gotten into arguments with people over how I rely too much on those around me. Some of it is probably jealousy. Most of it, however, probably comes from a worry that I’m being duped. Some worry that if I’m buying too heavily into other people’s beliefs, I’ll be tricked into having “the wrong” ones. However, when I comply with those people and try to think about an issue on my own and I end up coming up with the wrong answer, the same people that wanted me to have my own opinions say that my opinions are bad and I’m an idiot. For me, being weak-willed seems better than being an idiot.

Why won’t you be upset with me?

Bit of background first:

I grew up being very emotionally charged. If I didn’t get my way as a kid, I would throw huge temper tantrums. I remember a bit of my mind-state in some of those times. I don’t remember why, but I was very mad one day. I went to my room after an argument with my parents and didn’t so much as think but felt: I’m going to ruin everything. Not as a worry that I might screw up, but as a goal to fulfill. I walked over to my desk, and pushed everything onto the floor. I kicked a hole in the wall. I tipped over my shelf, making lots of noise and spreading things everywhere. I tipped my mattress over and threw the sheets all over the room. I would lay on the ground with my feet on the wall slamming my heals on the wall to make as much noise as possible. I still had some reasoning, I kept the rampage confined to my own room. But the feeling of giving in to the slipping emotions felt so good so I would just go with it.

As I got older, the rage subsided, but the emotions stayed strong. When they stopped being directed outward, they started being directed inward. Crippling depression was as exhausting as my temper tantrums, but not nearly as fun. Yet, it was still easier to just go with the emotions instead of fighting against them. Plus I’d still get the attention. Instead of the frustrated/angry attention of my parents and brothers, it was the concerned attention my parents and therapist.

My first girlfriend pulled me out of the downward spiral and up the other way. Blind, unending, crazy love. Looking way past all of the problems in the relationship. All of the big fights. All of the serious miscommunications. A firehose of emotional energy.

Then…my first breakup. It nearly ended me. Darkness for almost three years. However, unlike before, this time I had a life line. School. I found purpose in physics and computer science. I was good at math and getting good grades. I actually enjoyed my history and writing classes. I found a relatively happy medium. I was still miserable but at least it wasn’t a roller coaster.

By the time my wife came around, the Six Flags’ Goliath of emotion had been regulated down to Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Sure, there are a few exciting parts, but for the most part, it’s a nice and easy ride. This has always been a little unfair to her, I think. She never got me at my most emotional. She never really seen my unfiltered crazy love. But, she never see’s me at my worst. She doesn’t have to deal with the horrible depression or the unending and unfiltered anger.

This all leads up to an answer that I didn’t give her when she asked: “Why won’t you be upset with me?”. Because I can’t. And I think that’s for the best. I’ve never been addicted to a substance, but I feel that depression and anger and sadness and joy and happiness are my drugs. With that question: “Why won’t you be upset with me?”, my wife becomes the asshole “friend” that throws a crazy party for his buddy that just got his 5 year chip from AA.

That isn’t to say that I don’t understand or am unsympathetic to the question. As before, there’s a good feeling of comradery when you join together with a common emotion. And there’s a desire for your spouse to be the person that shares everything with you. When one half is fine while the other is upset, it creates a distance. However, when there’s a fear of relapsing after I’ve come so far, I try to not to give into those feelings.

Trump

Donald Trump is our president. A lot of people around me are very upset. I don’t care. I don’t want to care. I can’t care. There’s immense social pressure to give into the emotions. People get even more upset when I don’t seem bothered by it. When I say that I don’t care about Donald Trump being our president, people follow up with: “Then you don’t care about women, minorities, the poor, freedom, america…”. I was going to finish this paragraph by defending me caring, but I’m not sure it’s true. Maybe I don’t care about women or minorities. Maybe I don’t care about freedom or america. If that is true, it such a fundamental “not caring” that it doesn’t imply that I wish ill upon them. It’s just that it doesn’t directly affect me.

It has indirect effects though. I care about my friends and family being happy. When my friend wants to get birth control but can’t, that makes me upset. When my friend’s grandpa lingers in pain in the last years of his life because assisted suicide is illegal, that makes me upset. When my wife is passed up for a promotion because she’s a woman, that makes me upset. Do I want to solve these problems? Do I want to figure out a way to make everything better? FUCK YEAH! But I haven’t been able to, and that makes me upset. So instead of banging my head against the Great Wall of Politics, giving myself concussions and not making a dent in the wall…I just don’t care. I’d rather spend my time trying to calm everyone down so that we can go back to being happy.