Many a time have therapists informed me of a tendency to box my emotions; that is to say, they are bounded and well defined, not bottled or suppressed, as is an action socially regarded as unnaturally repressive. These same therapists have proposed that this box be eradicated.
But first, an explanation of this entity. Indeed, I allow myself to feel, and experience quite an extensive array of emotions, most notable among them amplified and situational bemusement, illogically appropriated anger, tranquility, envy, shame, lust and intensified anxiety resultant of a tenacious perfectionism
I cannot always explain where they come from, only that they are circumstantial. Much to my shagrin, their surfacing is not always logical, and they do not follow predictable patterns that would allow their harnessing.
I cannot always explain where they come from, only that they are circumstantial. Much to my shagrin, their surfacing is not always logical, and they do not follow predictable patterns that would allow their harnessing. From the information I can gather of others, this is regarded as normal, as are the emotions themselves, a large majority of which are observed negatively. They are manifestations of dissatisfaction as it shape shifts and malleates around the circumstances at hand.
This I find frustrating. As one who painfully desires to identify most with logically minded characters, Sherlock (BBC), Spock of Star Trek, Will Hunting, maintaining an emotional state is quite deviant and inhibiting. In fact, because of the degradation with which these emotions of mine are viewed, chiefly by my father and by peers, I for a time denied their adoption and ridiculed others for their own emotional expressions. ‘Twas a form of Kolinahr crude.
I see this as the modus operandi of many young women of this generation and those prior. For in order to survive in an organized hierarchy, one’s own mental state must be organized and every subsequent action accordingly justified. Put simply, emotions are chaotic, defiant of organization, and thus must be denied their reign.
And yet given the implosive consequences of emotional repression, I further developed a system of control by exercising boundaries over these frightful beasts. The Maverick and I, we said, “Ok, we concede to your existence, and acknowledge your influence over the mind and body. You shall run rampant and wild to your decree, but past these limits you shall not proceed. You may be felt, but nothing more.”
And thus, the emotions are contained, a Pandora’s box filled with pressuring secrets. When my emotions are contained, I can observe them with ease, define them and by extent further define their bounds. Depending on the environment, the box may expand or contract. I notice that it constricts around men, because psychologically they are associated with power and influence and remind me too greatly of the reprimands of my father. ‘Tis, in this way, a sexist box, a characteristic that I am working to uproot in its entirety.
But even this compromise is oppressive by nature, for it defeats the purpose of emotions. This box may be observed in my mannerisms and my work and writing, the way I justify actions or provide ideas. Adrienne Rich, a notable literary feminist, recognized the paradigm in the 1970’s, and like my therapists advocated against its institution.She wrote this of Virginia Woolf’s classic A Room of One’s Own:
“…I was astonished at the sense of effort, of pains taken, of dogged tentativeness, in the tones of that essay. And I recognized that tone. I had heard it often enough, in myself and in other women. It is the tone of a woman almost in touch with her anger, who is determined not to appear angry, who is willing herself to be calm, detached, and even charming in a roomful of men where things have been said which are attacks on her very integrity. Virginia Woolf is addressing an audience of women, but she is acutely conscious — as she always was — of being overheard by men; by Morgan and Lytton and Maynard Keynes and for that matter by her father, Leslie Stephen. She drew the language out in an exacerbated thread in her determination to have her own sensibility yet protect it from those masculine presences.”
In essence, the argument made is that women write for men, and it is an argument that I wish to resurface. To be taken seriously as a writer, a physicist, my writing itself must be boxed, purely logical and irreproachable in the extreme. In forty years, few advancements have been made to disassociate emotional tendencies with femininity, and by extent weakness. It is why so many men commit suicide; they feel immensely, and yet convinced of the illogicality of their emotions, refuse therapeutic aid for fear of being considered weak. And it is why women are silent in conversation, for fear that their ideas will undergo vicious scrutiny.
Together, we tether our passions and our words, convinced that if we do not we will be considered weak or crazy. I am unsure if this tethering is evident in my own writing, but I am wary of its existence in this very piece. In itself, it provides solution and problem, a facade of order when in reality we are active volcanoes, ready to explode.
In the next article, I will articulate various characteristics of emotions that may provide insight into the uncharted realm of rampant emotional expression. Any enlightenment you may hold, dear readers, is encouraged in its expression.
Hereby the Maverick 