{"id":74,"date":"2004-03-11T12:26:07","date_gmt":"2004-03-11T17:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/?p=74"},"modified":"2005-12-01T12:26:27","modified_gmt":"2005-12-01T17:26:27","slug":"scary-stuff-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=74","title":{"rendered":"Scary Stuff: Emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can remember thinking that Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek<\/em> — he half human, half Vulcan, a logically oriented being, whose emotions were buried beneath his Vulcan half — was an entirely lucky sort. Problems came up on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise, Captain Kirk needed a steady hand, someone who he could trust, someone who he could rely on… who did he turn to? Mr. Spock! Logic driven, cool, collected, not clouded by issues of the heart. Great choice! For Captain Kirk, that is… on the Enterprise…<\/em> <\/p>\n

Let’s look a little bit closer at this character… Don’t be fooled by his clear intelligence, or his pointy ears & arched eyebrows… is this suppression of emotion a good thing? <\/p>\n

Well… maybe it is on Planet Vulcan. But we live on Earth. <\/p>\n

So I suffer with my emotions… daily. And suffer, meaning I live with it. A day doesn’t go by that I am not keenly aware of the beauty that surrounds me… the happiness & joy I feel, or the disappointment and pain I also experience… the failure to connect to someone, the missed opportunity to say the right thing… to fail in some way make a difference for someone, of not doing well enough… oh, it hurts — the same way bringing a smile or laugh to someone’s face, or doing a job well done brings such immeasurable pleasure. <\/p>\n

Anyway… for those who know me… I spend a fair amount of time running (or on some “cross trainer” if my “wheels” are hurting)… I actually dislike the activity greatly… but it has been a good vehicle for me… to work thru some anger, burn some calories to boot, and to think. To think about how I feel… to think about how lucky it is to experience life’s full riches… to feel the anguish of hurt and despair, and to feel the joy & excitement of love and the comfort of peace of mind. <\/p>\n

So there you have it… the beauty of a summer day, the hum of the cicadas adding to the melody of the mid-day sun, walking along a hedge covered in honeysuckle, bees abuzz, the air thick with humidity, and the sweet perfume of those flowers encasing me… How can you not feel good? And then there is the day you struggle with a hurt, a loss, a bad turn of fortune to you, your kids… whatever. <\/p>\n

All part of the same pie if you ask me. And my God, I wouldn’t trade it for all the bounty on Planet Earth or on Planet Vulcan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can remember thinking that Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek — he half human, half Vulcan, a logically oriented being, whose emotions were buried beneath his Vulcan half — was an entirely lucky sort. Problems came up on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}