I was watching a Netflix series with my wife. It was typical Netflix, at least for me. Intriguing to begin with and then sort of predictable, and I actually bailed halfway through the last episode. It wasn’t that I knew exactly how the show was going to end, but I did know two things as certain.
The first was that the last episode of any streaming series is written with the optimistic assumption that if they attract enough viewers, then that should assure a second season. So, a few strings will need to be left untied, and a few stories untold.
I don’t have the patience for that shit, and so I didn’t watch the last episode because I had no intentions of watching a second season.
The second certainty I had was that any continuance of this particular drama was going to involve feelings and flashbacks. Both of which if overused tend to ruin entertainment for me.
Actually now that I think about it, I thought that the worst case scenario for me is when they start a movie at the end, and then spend the next two hours explaining how we got to that end. But this series actually trumped my worst case with repetitive flashbacks. Each of those flashbacks was presented as an explanation for the current behavior of the actresses.
Feelings and flashbacks. Two of my least favorite things. Flasbacks, because they’re most often a refresh of a trauma, and there’s obviously nothing healthier than wallowing in misery of the past. And feelings, because they’re ugly about ten times as much as they’re beautiful.
And that’s the problem with feelings.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have feelings. What I am saying, is that we need to exercise some discipline over our emotions.
But that’s a big ask for the human race, and from the look of things I’m sensing there’s not much interest from the general public anyway. Which is kind of odd in my estimation. So while I was ignoring the first fifteen minutes of the last Netflix episode, I was trying to understand why we’re so fond of our emotions, and I think I might have an answer.
It’s because we’re inherently selfish.
That’s not a judgement, but rather an observational conclusion I’ve landed on that explains the human condition for me. We’re wired that way. If we look at the range of our emotions they all have one commonality. They’re an expression of personal need. Greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, wrath and pride are all emotional expressions of selfishness.
And I think the whole point of Gregory and Aquinas when they defined the seven sins, was to use the Catholic church to try and manage selfishness, before it transformed into something shitty enough to give witnesses flashbacks.
The feelings themselves are much less harmful when contained. However, when we let them loose then wrath becomes murder. If you gather enough individual wrath together then murder becomes war. Greed becomes theft, lust becomes adultery if two married to other lusters get together, and rape if there’s only one luster.
And gluttony becomes diabetes. Or maybe those 1000 pound sisters.
Pride has always been a bit of a mystery for me over why it made the list. I think that too much hubris was frowned upon by the church. Then as it is now, the church liked their people humble and obedient. I could be wrong though. Maybe they were thinking that too much pride leads to stubborn, and stubborn leads to conflict. But I’m still inclined to think it was a warning to not think of yourself as Godlike, which is kind of the ultimate sin as far as the church is concerned. No other God before me and all that. Because according to Deuteronomy, wealth, friends and even those you marry could detract you from focusing on Him.
So maybe our selfishness is unavoidable if we’re created in His own image.
On a side note, I’m not really sure why I end up using bible quotes as often as I do. I think because at it’s core the bible is an instruction manual for how to think and ultimately behave, and I really think it could use an update. A newer new testament and a recall on the old one would be a fine idea.
Anyway, that’s enough bible absurdity. I was talking about feelings.
There are some feelings that are arguably beneficial to the overall state of human affairs. Love, compassion and charity for example. I think that compassion and charity are just versions of love, so for sake of argument I’m going to concentrate on the concept of love.
At it’s core love is selfish and easily corruptible. Love can produce jaw dropping acts of sacrifice, but it can also produce stalkers and a litany of crimes of passion. There’s a line in a song by Ten C.C. that says the things we do for love, but the remaining lyrics don’t even come close to capturing all of the things we can do for this particular feeling.
It’s all in how we manage the love sentiment. Unfortunately, all of us provide our personal version of management based on what we want, and fuck everyone and everything else. As a result, a person in love might step in front of a speeding car to save the object of their affection, but they can also push a competitor to that object of affection in front of the same car. It depends on the methods a person is willing to employ to demonstrate their love perspective.
Then there’s the duality of love, in that it’s wonderful to acquire but horrendous to lose. So while I’m dabbling in band quotes, here’s a few lines from Nazareth.
Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds and marks
Any heart
Not tough or strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Love hurts
Ooh, ooh, love hurts
(For the sake of accuracy I’m going to add that the original song was written by Boudleaux Bryant, and was first recorded by the Everly Brothers in 1960.)
Love is a feeling, and according to Boudleaux, love hurts. So that’s an apt lead in to getting back on track with the problem with feelings. Because in my estimation, the woes of the world are very much a result of hurt feelings.
Hurt feelings are the result of an individual not getting what they want. No one wants to be insulted, rejected or humiliated, and when that happens we all get hurt feelings. But what we do with those injured emotions is actually pretty amazing, and generally not amazing in a good way.
It doesn’t matter who we are either. Everyone lashes out if they can’t control their hurt feelings, and the results are invariably shitty to watch, and even worse if you’re a retribution target. It doesn’t matter if you’re some gangster in the hood that Glocked a rival for disrespecting them, or a butt hurt ex-president pissed because his diminishing crowd sizes got pointed out. Both are examples of hurt feelings, and in both cases the butt hurt demands retaliation on the butt hurtee.
Some people take their response too far though, and that’s why we invented rules for hurt feelings redress. Like all rules though, there’s a certain percentage of people that don’t believe those rules apply to them, and as a result we’ve invented penitentiaries for gangsters, and civil litigation for ex-presidents.
And maybe penitentiary. We’ll see how America sorts that issue out.
It sucks that we need the rules. But we do, because that selfishness I talked about earlier endlessly creates and causes hurt feelings that demand some sort of vengeance. Sometimes the people with hurt feelings deserve to have their feelings hurt because they’re assholes. But those people usually won’t accept that judgement willingly, and so an imposition is necessary from the courts or the internet. Ideally the courts of justice and public opinion will get it right.
Ideally.
I’m pretty sure that we’re never ever going to be able to eliminate selfishness. As a result we’re always going to have hurt feelings generated by that selfishness.
If the hurt is valid, then a response is required or else we end up with injustice. In our court system we have rules for measured responses, and I think it would be a fine idea if people in general found a way to incorporate rules into their own reactions to hurt feelings.
Just think about it is all I’m saying. Every feeling you experience doesn’t necessitate an action and it certainly doesn’t require an overreaction.
Chill.
Your hurt feelings don’t amount to much in the overall scheme of things.