Posted by just plain jane on December 4, 2004, at 19:02:35
"Curiosity is an emotion. Curiosity is the only emotion that can't be extiguished from the outside, or by other people. Only we can turn off our own curiosity."
Rod, I am curious as to what brings you to the conclusion that "curiosity is the only emotion that can't be extinguished from the outside"?
I believe that we are born with the capacity for all emotions.
I believe when we freely allow those emotions to surface and feel them and deal with them, we learn to direct them, control them, if you will.
If I get angry, no one on the outside is going to extinguish my anger. They may suceed in calming me down and helping me refocus elsewhere, but the anger remains.
This is the same for faith. Not only in the context of God, but just faith in general. To me it is not "I wish I had more faith", because I have faith, it, too resides within the deepest recesses of my soul. And my faith is strong, because I exercise it.
Patience, same thing.
These emotions can be shared, or exercised with, another person, but I, and only I, decide whether that sharing will happen.
When I have unpleasant emotions, it is time to exercise the pleasant ones, to counter the attack on my psyche, and therefore, control my behavior.
Others have tried, my entire life, to extinguish me through manipulation of my emotions. When I realized that "Hey, I am the one who owns these things", I realized I can just close my tiny little mental/emotional door on them and rely on the better emotions to carry me through, lift me up, and remove me from the situation.
just plain point of view of jane
poster:just plain jane
thread:424368
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041203/msgs/424446.html