Emotions 2

[Guest guest]

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:48:37 -0400, " Pat Ethridge " <pat.ethridge wrote:

 

> In post-modern, highly mobile and fragmented societies, that support is

missing or unreliable, so individuals more often throw out their emotions

to anyone, seeking support (I mean this in a more unconscious way). Another

person's listening is a large part of emotional re-balancing, and that is

often what people in fast-paced societies don't have time for. When things

get really bad, people end up in therapy.

 

This doesn't strike me as overstatement. In fact, it's a pretty good

description of often takes place in internet discussion groups. (I'm not

pointing a finger at this group, which does host occasional emotional

outbursts, but at about the same rate/proportion as other groups I

participate in, which also involved professional, intelligent and educated

individuals.)

 

A positive side of internet discussion groups I attempted to describe

yesterday, in " Re: Belief in the Yellow Emperor (literary & oral &

language) " . That was about the " nousphere " or space of the mind that is

forming via the computer/electronic www. And suggesting that this

event/process might become analogous to the advent of written

communication/literature, some 2000-3000 years ago.

 

In that respect, airing out views, often with emotional overtones, seems to

me a way of throwing out slices of our mental life, looking for feedback.

To some extent, as measure of how far what we're thinking/feeling is

shared, or how it may be idiosyncratic, more reflecting our own limited,

sometimes wayward perceptions.

 

Perceptions of the various positive and negative mental and emotional

states presented here, bouncing them off my particular understanding of the

5-spirits metaphors for the meaning of emotion adds to the benefit of

participating, and relating it all to CM/TCM.

 

Thanks for the many other insights contributed in this thread. Like the

notion of " presupposition " from " Dermot O'Connor "

<dermot.