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Rediscovering Emotion
Overcoming Emotional Numbness through something special
I woke up feeling sad. And when I entered my studies and stared at all the closed, opened, half-closed, half-opened books that were lying on my table and the floor, I noticed that I was reading a lot of literature these days. And then, focusing on the bunch of flowers in the cover of ‘100 Selected Poems’ by John Keats, I wondered if all this literature was causing my sadness.
‘Others are doing just fine with their YouTube and Tiktok; TV Shows and Ziplines. Why did you have to get into all this? These words confuse you and make you feel a lot of nonsense,’ I mused.
I then recalled how I was a few months ago: Full of either anxiety or excitement; envy or pride. I then recalled how I was on a hiatus from my literature consumption back then. I also recalled how I desperately pleaded to feel anything apart from anxiety, excitement, envy, and pride.
‘Make me feel things other than these,’ I had wailed with myself in solitude with both my imaginary hands raised up to the heavens. ‘Give me loneliness, grief, sadness, joy, gladness, sense of beauty. Make me feel anything but these. Please, take me away from these. Show me the world beyond anxiety, excitement, envy, and pride.’
