on emotions

Yes, we can now take anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, what have you to block a good amount of the pain of feeling, at the expense of doing just that, severing yourself from your own emotions. People on meds do commonly report feeling numb and emotionless. "Chemical imbalance." What they're really saying is that you have a disposition, the tendency, to predominant unhappiness. Detrimental to yourself and others. So you must artificially check your emotional lows (and highs) and re-condition yourself to manageable (acceptable) levels. But you can never "re-condition" it away.

"My point is that beauty, passion, creativity, love, would cease to exist if we all allowed ourselves to become devoid of emotion, and that is much more sad to me than feeling crappy about my life (even if I feel that way most of the time)." I believe in paying attention to all of my feelings, even and most especially the ones I would try to hide from myself. I used to go to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable social situations and certain emotions; I had conditioned myself to intellectualize, rationalize, and feign competency. I was in denial about a whole range of my own emotions. I couldn't bring myself to validate my feelings and convinced myself otherwise. So I did not learn. So I did not grow.

We are fated to go through the most unpleasant emotions. This may never change about us in general; but, if we have the honesty and courage to accept our condition, we can at least then begin to understand ourselves better.