From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Feelings... Eeeew

Posted by Katie

I keep imagining Reynolds reacting to feelings as a little kid reacts to worms. Either delighted by them and pulling them out of the ground, or upon seeing them squirm making a scrunched up face and yelling 'eeeeewwwww' while running to go squash ants instead. He makes the analogy that feelings are like bugs on a wind shield very early on, and so now I have this perpetual image of dead bugs as feelings that I can not seem to shake.
That aside, I have had a tough time trying to see how in reality, as Reynolds makes such a big deal of it, this idea could actually work. I kept putting off posting for this week because I kept trying to figure out in some way how this would be something that could really be taken and transplanted into someones daily life. This is as close as I've gotten: I know that for me personally, I operate off of knee jerk gut feelings and reactions. I have always been like this, and I feel (hah!) differently about it every day. That aside, I think that I try to make it a point to change something if I do not like it, or if it can be changed. I know that I get annoyed very easily by people who complain about situations in their life, but they do nothing to change these situations. They do nothing to change how they react or behave if the situation comes up again. An example would be captain grabby hands who I had dealt with at work. I would complain about it, and get really upset, and internalize these icky icky feelings. I would put it on everyone else to listen to me rant about how 'not okay' it was. I really wish someone would have told me (or I would have realized sooner on my own), 'if you don't like it, leave!'.
I had a few girlfriends in college who had started to gain weight. We would sit around the living room eating Dominos pizza and they would whine about how they miss their old bodies. Finally one day I lost it. 'If you don't like your body then go to the fucking gym!' Heh, not my most caring moment as a friend, but I think that people wallow not so much in their feelings, but the reactions they get from others upon expressing them.
What I am trying to say in a very round about manner with random examples is that I get what Reynolds is putting forward. But I do think however, that perhaps he could use a reality check from this reality that he paints for feeling wallowers and realize that he isn't dealing with bugs on the windsheild, he is dealing with hitting a got'damn'ten'point'buck on 94'dontcha know.