Is there anything more important to you than how you feel?

[LonesomeLoser]

There certainly isn't anything more important to me than how I feel from moment to moment. Even doing things I hate doing, I do because I know that long-term, not doing them would cause me more emotional distress than doing them now. As anyone here who saw my thread in "Anything Else", about a machine that would make you feel however you want all the time knows, I consider my feelings the be-all and end-all and everything else (and everyone else) in the world is just a means to make myself feel a certain way.

My one goal in life if you can call it that, has always been to get to the point where nothing bothers me emotionally, because nothing is as important to me than how I feel. Whether it be by some rich relative taking care of me so that I never had to deal with anything unpleasant ever again (unfortunately I have no relative capable of doing that), or becoming some real go-getter who loves problems/challenges, because if you love challenges, if you love dealing with problems, then what would ever bother you emotionally?

If something bothers me emotionally, it bothers me on top of it that I'm bothered. It's like "I hate feeling sad/afraid/angry/nervous....god there has to be a way for me to not feel this way ever again." I read that if women are more susceptible to depression than men (maybe women just seek help for it more?), its because when women have something unpleasant happen to them they tend to sit and ruminate about it. Whereas men tend to get up and do something, either to fix the problem or if there's nothing they can do about the problem, they do something to distract themselves. Maybe its because I was raised by my mom and grandma that I tend to deal with unpleasant situations in a more passive manner.

But anyway I just wanted to ask if maybe this isn't as unusual for a guy as I'm thinking it might be. Are there things more important to you in life than how you feel? Do you spend much time thinking about how you feel, and how you want to feel in the future? Or are your own feelings not particularly on your mind much?

 

[xdreamz]

i have just recently been paying attention to my feelings. i am a victim of psychotic disorder it might be depression, it might be something else i have no idea. but i wake up from my bed today unable to wake up and now i'm left with a sense of drowsiness and laziness, and its like this almost every day. i hate the way i feel these days and i hate the fact that i can't do much to change it so i just distract myself like you said from them.

but sometimes i learn things from the way i'm feeling. like i've been recently seeing this woman and she made me feel great but just one day the happy feeling was gone and it was replaced with thoughts about her the whole day and impatience to see her, i called to find out that the feelings she had for me had somehow managed to slip away as she was putting me off. so pay attention to your feelings because they happen for a reason.

 

[Vlad the Impaler]

That's why I smoke weed.

 

[Schmuck]

Evolutionary wise we are just animals that are self aware. So the limbic system and the reptilian brain are just surrounded by the self-aware part. Those pre-historic remnants are still sending signals for action prior to us asking for it. For example we don't think about breathing, keeping our hearts beating..etc. We all get angry, sad, happy.. without asking to be so. These are all triggered by stimuli. (This is why I respect great actors, and why they are paid so much. They are masters of the logic controlling the emotion).

How one deals with those messages is called self-control. Some of us just are a slave to the emotions. I think it's biological. It has to be. Evolution would not allow for everyone to evolve the same exact emotional/logical brain relationship.

We all know those people who are extremely stoic. It's like not a damn emotion bothers them. Then you have people who are just completely dramatic. We all fall somewhere in the range.

I too am a slave to the emotions. And I am fairly powerless against it. And I know it, that's what sucks. I need to sign up for an acting class.

There is the whole regression where you keep asking someone why they do something and eventually the last answer is always "because it will make me happy". I mean why do we want great sex with awesome chicks? Well, to feel happy. Why do we want to feel happy? Try to answer that one.