Feelings

Human beings are made up of so many strange things and none is really stranger than feelings.  Not the sort that says, "Ouch I just stepped on a nail," but the kind that says, "I have a hunch," or "I am terrified," or "I am happy, or miserable, or sad."

Jealousy is often portrayed as a green eyed monster and that monster has eaten a lot of relationships alive. Sorrow has drowned innumerable people in its tears. Love has given people the strength to do amazing things.

Feelings must be harnessed the way one might corral twenty mules for a team in Death Valley.  It takes focus and a lot of strength.  I might think I would simply rather get rid of them, but that's not really an option.

Without feelings we are stone people, cold empty shells of what we are supposed to be.  We need feelings, so life becomes one long trial until we find the balancing point -- that place where the joy and creativity and edginess of feeling balances out the irrational and unbearable.

The good news for me is that I know it's been done before.  The world has gone through millions of people who have experienced all these same feelings, some better and some worse, and found a way to cope.

Surely I can do that too.