"No I don't," I thought. I spent a good ten minutes trying to convince myself that I didn't. Reluctantly, now, I've concluded that he was right. We long for another moment of heightened emotion. It's why girls love chick flicks, why some churches focus too much on emotional worship--it's why boys want to go off to war and writers create drama. If there wasn't that heightened emotion caused by tragedy, there would be no growth and ultimately no life. Perhaps that's why Kate is such a drama queen.
Though it may be true that we sometimes long for tragedy and drama, we should not become desperate for it. Desperation creates a narcissistic view of the world and petty tragedies.
Commented on Lane's.
I felt the same sense of conflictedness. I knew that I did not want another 9/11. It was a horrible tragedy, but instead of seeing Mitchell's statement as completely illogical and nonsensical, I tried to find truth in it. I found some: we crave emotion. Good emotion, bad emotion, or neutral, we crave it. We crave it for one reason: Our emotion reminds us that we are still human. We still have the capability of feeling. But are thousands of deaths worth it for me to remind myself of my own mortality and existence though? That i'm still conflicting over.
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of the whole suffering into truth concept from last year. Subconsciously we long for the tragedy because the truth and the feeling that we have after it is so precious to us. When we come off of that mountain top, we miss it. Even if it seems morbid, we really do secretly want those things to happen again because of the way they effected us.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts were along the same line except that my realization only took about 6 seconds.ha. The only thing is that I'm not sure we can choose to not be desperate for those types of things. There is a reason that every popular movie or video game is filled with death and the things that would seem horrible if they happened to us.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, i agree. And just as Kelsey said, the whole idea of suffering into truth. So in tragedy we can find truth? I think just as we find in life, when something bad happens, we suffer and then eventually we find truth. (most of the time) We learn from the suffering.
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