inattention in the service of belief, keeps reality at bay by depopulating conscious awareness of facts.
The most destructive belief seems to be the common fear that expressing emotion is a bad thing. This report in New Scientist confirms part of this observation empirically.Stiff upper lips may impair memories
Excerpt: James Gross at Stanford University in California and Jane Richards at the University of Texas at Austin showed 57 volunteers a disturbing film about a surgical procedure, then asked them questions about their emotional state, how much effort they put into hiding their feelings, and their memory of events in the film.
They found people who made the most effort to keep their emotions in check had the worst recall for what they had seen.
In the second part of the study, they instructed a different set of 175 volunteers either to try to control their facial expressions or to distract themselves by thinking about something else. Both groups did equally poorly at remembering what happened in the film (Journal of Research in Personality, DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2005.07.002).
Gross [the author of the study] suggests that the effort of trying to control your emotions detracts from your ability to remember details. "It can make you pretty stupid," he says." Of course, this is one of the prime goals of terrorism, of allowing, or doing, things like New Orleans, or Iraq, or 9/11. When we are confronted by horror we tend to become stupid, stupid.
The answer, my friends, is blow'n in the wind.
Just let it all hang out, hopefully in the presence of friends.
Cry and rage, swear and throw yourself to the ground, tear your clothes and heave your cookies if necessary. Just be careful to not hurt yourself or anyone else in the process.
Contrary to all we have been mistaught, it is possible, even necessary, to separate action from overwhelming emotion. Don't just do something, stand there and emote.
Let the horror of the day wash trough you untrammeled and untamed. No-one will be hurt and you will end up much less confused about what the monsters are doing to us.
I have been trying to convince my activist friends for years to have "scream-ins," rather than demonstrations. I am sure this would work, but the idea continues to be ignored. Activists tend to be prisoners of their minds, you know.
One of my standard bits of pediatric advice to distraught parents of toddlers is to suggest that, when they find themselves being overwhelmed by frustration, they go out to the car, roll up the windows, and just scream till it feels better. More than one parent has told me that their toddlers have demanded to join them in the car and scream with them. The joint screaming exercise tended to produce, when the disturbing emotions had finally dissipated, the warmest embrace of their lives.
On the true path to enlightenment, peace and joy, it is never necessary to hurt yourself or others. If you find that people are being hurt, you are not on the path, or, perhaps, someone is faking being hurt to keep you under control.
I still do this screaming thing, when I have the sense to make myself do it. Of course, living as I do in the way back, I can just do it anywhere I want in the house. Outside is still off limits though, as my yelling carries for miles, I am told, and I believe it scares the animals.
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Cry and rage, swear and throw yourself to the ground, tear your clothes and heave your cookies if necessary.
Just be careful to not hurt yourself or anyone else in the process.
Contrary to all we have been mistaught, it is possible, even necessary, to separate action from overwhelming emotion.
Don't just do something, stand there and emote.
Let the horror of the day wash trough you untrammeled and untamed.
No-one will be hurt and you will end up much less confused about what the monsters are doing to us.
I have been trying to convince my activist friends for years to have "scream-ins," rather than demonstrations.
I am sure this would work, but the idea continues to be ignored.
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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Say it with a bumper sticker:
$3 each, or two for $5
Previous articles by this author:
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Four decades in five minutes
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Why "Free Speech" does not matter
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When all else fails, try the truth
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Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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