Damn You!!!

"Yeah, F**k YOU!" - Recognise this?

"A**hole!!" - Ever done that?

"You piece of SHIT!" - What about this?

"Ahhh! Go to HELL!" - Familiar?

I used to have them up my sleeves. They would roll off my tongue readily during the moments, though not always out loud. But between then and now, I have fewer and fewer use of their services over times. It's not because I've toned down with age. It's not because I've resigned and given in. It's because I started to recognise them as what they truly are - hormones personified.

Our brains release a certain kind of hormones into our bodies according to the provocation we receive from our sensory contacts with the surrounding and people around us. And these hormones cause our body to react in a certain way. We like the positive bunch. They can make us live until 103, and be happy about it. It's the negative ones that we have to deal with. We might still live until 103 with them, but we might wish we had not.

I do nothing with the positive bunch. I don't query their presence. I don't probe their origins. I don't analyse their effect on me. I would embrace them, enjoy them, immerse myself totally within them and feel blessed by them. It's like reading a joke (or watching a movie) which has its punch line written all over the buildups. I'd keep reading without wondering how it'll end until I reach the punch line, and have a hearty laugh.

However, when the undesired hormones make their round in my body after a negative provocation, I would feel consumed, burnt, being done with. It ruins the rest of my day. I hate it because I don't like to waste any day - for that matter, any moment - of my life in a non-productive and negative ways. But, I have learnt how to deal with it.

I would go back to the basic and start feeling for my heartbeat, the very essence of my existence. My heartbeat defines my existence. Then I remind myself what drives a heartbeat. Emotions.

Anger hastens the beat. Calmness steadies it. Joy pumps up the rhythm. Tranquility slows it down. Jealousy confuses the tempo. Excitement races it to the top gear. Rage can drive it up a notch higher than top gear. Sorrow silences the sound. Peace calms it down.

Sure, the heartbeat can continue without emotions - loosely, that's the description of "vegetable people". Therefore: human, emotions, meaningful life, are one. Emotions will never go away as long as I'm a human who wants to have a meaningful life. There's no point having resentment towards the negative emotions and question their purposes in our lives. So, I would accept the negative emotions as much as the positive emotions. But how do I counter the poisonous effect they have on my being?

Detachment.

Having an understanding of the following sequence: sensory provocation - emotions - reaction, lays down the basis of my antidote.

I won't, and can't do anything about the sensory provocation. What has happened, happened. No point crying over spilt milk.

There will be instances where a reaction is warranted and justified, but that's a separate discussion.

The antidote applies to instances where a reaction to such negative provocation is non-productive to everyone, and yet I would still feel badly disturbed for the lack of it. The antidote is to diffuse these negative agitation boiling within.

In such cases, the knowledge that emotion is nothing more than the result of hormones wreaking havoc within us will be pivotal.

At this point I would like to break the flow with a joke.

A man found himself in amusement when he was in the toilet of a pub. He was watching a man holding a glass of beer, and poured the drink straight down the urinal. Bemused, he asked the other man what's he doing. The man replied coolly, "Well, I refuse, hics, simply, totally, utterly refuse, hics, to be the middleman, hics, between the glass, hics, and the urinal."



Therefore, under these negative provocations, I would just say to myself, "I refuse, simply, totally, utterly refuse to be the output channels of my negative hormones."

Do it often enough, and I find myself totally detached from the sequence of events and able to observe the happening as a third party. When I'm able to detach myself in this manner, I would be liberated from the holds of the negative emotions. I'm no longer the slave of my own negative emotions. I'm in control. I don't even feel the negative emotions anymore ... well, not that often anyway. After all, I'm just human.


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