emotional misgivings...

   
    I've been reading "The Sacredness of Questioning Everything", by David Dark...and to say that I have resounded with his words would be an understatement.  (Do you ever have a book that you start reading and catch yourself nodding in agreement with?)  Anyway, it's been so challenging and encouraging to me that I can only read a few paragraphs a day.  I walk away and know I need to be...I dunno..."different" as a result.

    Last night, I only got one page in and had to stop.  Dark tells a story about walking home with an older friend of his after they had watched the movie Big (where Tom Hanks plays a child who gets his wish to become "big").  They both said they liked it, but his friend began to share that he couldn't help but feel like it was all a bit contrived...which left him feeling a little depressed.  When Dark asked him what he meant, this is what he said.

The film struck him, he explained with a bit of reluctance, as "a waste of perfectly good emotion." 
  
    Dark goes on to basically say that emotions are wonderful, but they can be played with, pandered to, and drawn out of us even if the circumstances that created them were false/fiction.  He continues...

It's an undermining, by way of unreal endearment, of our ability to hold one another dear, a way of drawing us away from a sense of what's real...but if such sentimental fare is what mostly constitutes our media diet, our affections might slowly become-hear this!-merely theoretical, sentimentality...We get to the point that we save our strongest emotions for people who don't exist. Or in the case of sports figures, celebrity politicians, and talk show hosts, we get most worked up and alive...by way of people we don't know and who in all likelihood don't want to know us.  The living, breathing people next door or in the next cubicle or in the same house who might benefit from our showing up to them emotionally get left behind.

    Wow!  This got me thinking about so many things...like...Why do so many guys use video games to escape and achieve a sense of accomplishment and adventure?  Why not a real adventure away from their couch?  Why do some women get caught up in romance novels (literary porn) or ridiculously sappy movies?  Couldn't they reinvest that very emotion into their significant other or maybe finding one?  Why do so many of us invest the emotional (and weekly time) into "reality" television or our guilty pleasure tv shows?   Do we truly believe in the underdog story, the conflict, or love connection?  Does it have any relevance in our daily life whatsoever? Or is that the point entirely.  Don't kid yourselves...it's not just because of how well it was written, incredibly acted, or even how titillating it was.  You were roped in emotionally...completely duped...hook, line and sinker...and you loved every minute of it. 

    I am equally guilty in all of this for sure.  Even though I do not have television at my house, I watch some of my favorite shows (i.e. The Office) and enjoy the entertainment value (see:escape) of movies a lot.  More than I should if, I am honest with myself...and now all of you.  It's something I want/need to change.

    So, what then?  How do I tap into my inner Steinbeck?  Go on my Walden-esque adventures?  I can't drop everything just to spite how deeply hooked I have become entrenched in entertainment, can I?  Billions of dollars are betting against us at every turn...luring us into emotional turmoil - quickly followed by a cure for the very disease we just found ourselves ailing.  Coincidence?  I guess the beginning is realizing that my emotions are what they are and that if my best emotions are being spent away from reality, I should check myself...again...and again...until I look to those around me.

    That's a snapshot of the journey from where I'm walking today.  Thanks for all of the feedback on the last couple of posts!  I was humbled to be quoted on a beloved reader's Facebook status last week...the ultimate compliment in 2011, right?  Peace and love...