Affective

It is strange to be so small yet feel so immensely. We contain the universe—each of us, as much as any other component of the cosmos, no matter how minuscule or massive—and one of the truly queer elements of conscious being is not simply consciousness itself but the rare ability to feel, grief and melancholy, love and ecstasy, rage and fear, tedium and emptiness, gratitude and humor. We are a bizarre constellation of sensation, occasionally contradictory, though typically complementary, to our experiences, and with our emotions altogether inseparable from what it is to be an animal, to be carnal, to be. Ancient affective energies lurking within us are never dormant for long, and when they cannot find fissures to seep through easily, because of the banality of our work, deadening nature of routine, or simply the trappings of social convention and communal living that often elicit but also then prohibit unbridled emotive expression, the beating heart of our highest highs and lowest lows can and will find other ways to circumvent the incrustations of our dwellings. Rather than our emotions erupting unannounced at awkward times and places, perhaps alarming and confusing to ourselves as much as others, or, worse yet, buried down deep within such that we gradually become shells of our former selves, we can connect with our core to emote more frequently in ways that are endemic to being human and that encourage our flourishing. Granting ourselves permission to laugh at the lunacy of life, for example, and at ourselves, regularly, nurtures emotional intelligence and resilience, and will stave off rigor mortis even before we reach the grave. Tears, too, are terribly vital conduits to the suprarational affections and complex inner workings of the heart. The inability to freely shed tears, of joy or sorrow, or remember the last time we did, is a somber testament to a life out of touch, existence at the brink of being barely human. One of the great inhibitors to living from the heart is a misguided desire to be effective more than affective. The impulse to do and perform, more than feel and be, can lead to astounding results but too often at the cost of our own souls. Soulfulness is found in feeling first (not analyzing, not solving) the hardships and harrowing beauty of one’s own life. And, if and when we need to begin again, to evoke or enable an emotional recovery: a walk around the lake, or some time beside a tree, or a little space to sit and savor the consolations of the clouds, can resuscitate a deep remembrance, that walking the earth is a mystery and a miracle.