On Reveling In Emotion Invoked By Media

[nitroviper]

I have spent an inordinate amount of time plumbing the recesses of my psyche in an attempt to glean some insights into how I function. One interesting thing I have observed is a tendency to avoid media that evokes strong feelings, the strongest of which bubbles up as a potent and somewhat contradictory mixture of nostalgia, longing, and hope.

There is no singular name for this feeling, at least as far as I'm aware. It seems too complex, and at the same time too raw, to put into words. It's as if there is too much beauty in life to take in, as if I'm too small and too poor in a dozen different ways to contain it, or even fully realize it, or even deserve it. It screams at me, begging to be heard, and it murmurs softly in counterpoint to itself with a quite pride--it doesn't need a listener.

I live in a world inside my head. My world is filled with logical structures and explanatory models that intersect and criss-cross and interconnect in a fashion that I happen to find quite pleasing. I bump into corners and forget to take the keys out of the ignition because I find those things less important than connecting this interesting mental strand here with that one over there.

The monsters of my world have always been feelings. They do not bow to reason. They undermine the structure. They overcomplicated things. They are chaos. They have no right to do this.

Needless to say, this irrational (or extremely rational, as the case may be) vilification of one of my fundamental faculties has not served me well. There are so many facets of life, the joy of manipulating strings of logic being just one of them. And, there is the gestalt, or the appreciation of the gem as a whole, rather than a singular facet.

So, I've been making an effort to let the monsters come out to play. This can mean watching that one episode of that one series that resonates with me in an unsettling fashion, or it can mean listening to that one song that puts me in that strange mood. I, at least, should not feel the need to hide from beauty, even if it feels far beyond me.

Well... there it is!

 

[Rook]

Welcome to the madhouse, friend!

Aye, media has many times envoked an emotional response from me, and sometimes I wallow in the realease. Notable examples:
-A news report that irks me, say an irrational statement made by somoene prominent, useless publicizing of celebrities and idiotic human actions.
-Sometimes I get emotional when watching a science documentary, with pure emotion filling me with wonder at the complexity of our universe.
-In Death Note, when L died, I had a freak out, hitting and kicking the table, almost crying at the glaring injustice done to such a remarkable mind.

 

[nitroviper]

I was also irked by L's death... though perhaps not as much . I read the manga and saw the movies; maybe the anime presented it more powerfully.

On that note (lol), I had to pause "Sherlock" season 2 episode 1 after the climax and basically offer worship to Steven Moffat for his brilliance... I think I did that for a good few minutes.

I find it interesting that all of your emotional response are rooted in rationality or the lack thereof. I often feel the same way, but my strongest emotional responses aren't prompted by such things. I see a personally relevant representation of freedom, strength, or friendship, and I'm almost bawling.

 

[Anktark]

Just checking in. I was irked (wait, still am) by deaths of both L and the other character (trying to avoid spoiling it). Both brilliant in their own way.

Nice to see that I am not unique in that I am compelled to stop receiving input from a masterpiece to just take it in, enjoy it as much as I can, feel a connection with the author and praise him. It's like I need all my faculties to appreciate that moment in time and space.

I might be in need in some introspection, but I don't think I avoid media with potential emotional charge. Quite often I am either just not interested in things others consider tear-jerking/extremely fun or find them interesting, but not emotion inducing. Then again, maybe it's just a good lie I have been telling to myself. Or not. Excuse me while I go and have an argument with myself.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

@nitroviper Your post is poetic. You call emotions 'monsters'. Monsters make life exciting and unpredictable. Embrace your monster!

 

[OrcaNerd]

I abhor pathos and other emotional crap like Upworthy, that liberal website I can't recall the name of, etc. These things make me feel like a DVD player that continuously ejects the disc no matter how many times it is forced in.

As soon as I learn of new site of this nature, I learn the URL (I can recognize it, even if I can't name it just now) and avoid it and if I am unwittingly lead to one such site, as soon as the pathos starts to show, my brain shuts down and says, "This author has nothing valid to say! How does this crap get perpetuated?"

I do, however, enjoy and encourage the emotion of wonder. I like science documentaries, artistic talent, ect. I love innovation and creativity. While I hate upworthy, someone did show me something cool from that site: poverty stricken kids making classical instruments from garbage. To me, the beauty is in the innovation and resourcefulness of those kids.

 

[Goku]

the media is unable to penetrate my shield

 

[Steven Gerrard]

Lol this makes me think of the superbowl half-time military dedications Orca.

 

[nitroviper]

I might be in need in some introspection, but I don't think I avoid media with potential emotional charge. Quite often I am either just not interested in things others consider tear-jerking/extremely fun or find them interesting, but not emotion inducing. Then again, maybe it's just a good lie I have been telling to myself. Or not. Excuse me while I go and have an argument with myself.

I am almost never interested in things others consider tear-jerking or extremely fun. Others are almost never interested, or even emotionally aware, of the things that rock me to my very core.

Anime openings and endings, especially to shows I identify with, do this. Music videos can do this. Movies, especially emotionally odd ones like Miyazaki's "Whisper of The Heart" can do this.

If I were to be so bold as to dispense advice, I would recommend searching for things that resonate emotionally with you, however odd they may be. I actually received this advice during a deep conversation with an 'Artisan'. He was obviously emotionally developed and spoke of very specific things that resonated with him -- as specific as blue lights running down a building-- as well as his methodology for crafting the emotionally resonant moments that his life revolved around.

He had it down to a science, and I was fascinated because I could relate to his process, in an infinitely smaller way, but I could still grok his agenda and reasoning, and I could see the validity of his lifestyle.

 

[Steven Gerrard]

Anime openings and endings, especially to shows I identify with, do this. Music videos can do this. .

This, this, this. So much good angst every single time when you're alone at night.
And then the emotional momentum comes and I use it to start actively examining my feelings and what they mean.

Oh and rain. and anime rain.

 

[nitroviper]

This, this, this. So much good angst every single time when you're alone at night.
And then the emotional momentum comes and I use it to start actively examining my feelings and what they mean.

Oh and rain. and anime rain.

Damn. Straight.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Death note was well done until N appeared. It lost it's good taste then, I stopped watching and skipped to the ending because I knew how this was going to unfold.

I welcome my emotional responses, when I watch something or listen to music I am quite happy to feel, as I usually don't feel much during the day.

I don't treat emotions as beasts, they are a part of me and I can control when I lose control.

 

[nitroviper]

Death note was well done until N appeared. It lost it's good taste then, I stopped watching and skipped to the ending because I knew how this was going to unfold.

I welcome my emotional responses, when I watch something or listen to music I am quite happy to feel, as I usually don't feel much during the day.

I don't treat emotions as beasts, they are a part of me and I can control when I lose control.

Perhaps my monster metaphor was a bit too heavy-handed, as it only pertains to strong negative emotions. I was passively avoiding positive emotional experiences, not actively avoiding them.

The slight majority of strong emotions I feel are negative ones, which is probably both the cause and effect of my avoidance tendency; the cause because I subconsciously associate all strong emotions with negativity, the effect because the prevalence of negative emotion, and the consequent lack of positive emotion, cumulatively reinforces a darkly imbalanced emotional space over time.

This realization that I subconsciously avoid positive emotions as well as negative ones was something of a revelation-- the light was turned on, I saw the imbalanced nature of the space, and the obvious was thrust upon me: I was accidentally, incidentally, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Anyhow, I also lost interest after L's demise. It was a gutsy decision on the part of the mangaka to kill a (the) main character, deviating from the tropes of the medium, but tropes exist for a reason...

Edit:
Just to provide a few more examples, other things that resonate with me are enclosed spaces bathed in dim orange light, cities at night, and travel waypoints (train stations, bus stations, airport terminals) at night.