Express yourself before you go to bed

Insignificance.

What a scary thought. To feel so utterly useless, that you couldn’t breathe life into your own creations - the ink simply just drips off your page as you struggle vainly to find permanence to your words. To see someone so beautiful, you just had to tell them, but froze because you didn’t want to risk giving away too much of your hidden desires. To feel so disconnected, that you write your name on a foggy window in the hopes that the evaporating moisture will show the imprint you left behind.

To be someone without a face – a person without memories.

We place so much value into ourselves that we forget how quickly we belittle someone else because they evoke no swelling emotions of the two extremes – joy and fury. We hide our desires for fear that someone will twist our hopes and mold it into something so sinister that we reject it and deny it ever existed. We deny the existence of emotions and feelings for someone because they weakened the resolve we built to stand alone in this world – and hide away the emotions and feelings we have for fear that we will be ridiculed and left to ourselves.

Emotions are what give color to the interaction we have with others - being able to articulate the emotions we feel are what give life to them. Too often we catch ourselves questioning our sanity and leaving the adjectives to our thoughts in a box of crayons; an incomplete picture with more questions than answers. And the worse: we lie to hide the truth; knowing that no matter how powerful our words are, they could just be as easily thrown aside and left to die.

We also poison our words - bait them with malicious intent, knowing full well that the resonating emotions that react to it will fracture the barrier hiding what we desire. We manipulate the emotions of others; leaving a trail of broken hearts and resentment, sometimes unaware we’ve left a bitter taste. The lasting impression the bitterness leaves can destroy the genuine feeling someone gives in the future.

No wonder we’re all so internally conflicted. We’re torn between the choice of giving ourselves and risking it all for the moment of feeling connected or hiding it away and hoping that someone will offer themselves first. It’s an exhausting feeling to carry all this emotional weight without a place to drop it. The struggle to carry the weight impedes our emotional progress – it angers, depresses and stretches our internal resources.

A researcher in Japan found that by projecting the two human extremes of emotions – happiness and fury – it caused water molecules to develop colors and patterns. By projecting happiness towards water molecules, the crystallites developed bright, complex, brilliant and colorful patterns. By projecting fury at the water molecules, the crystallites became dull and asymmetrical in shape – dark in design. The emotional weight that we carry can shape us and destroy us – we’re made of 61.8 percent water.

We’re slowly killing ourselves.

It’s of a sad point to make that I’ve probably ended up taking a few years off my life expectancy for the way I’ve treated people in the past. So quick was I to judge and ridicule, that I ignored the emotional burden I carried for losing a friend or two – perhaps even someone that I loved. Now I stand alone. Incomplete and wishing for a second chance – knowing that my words have become vapor.

Take it from me; living a bitter and angry existence will only further distance you from ever having experienced that moment of pure joy, where the obstacles were merely just small bumps in your ride. Go out and enjoy what your friends have to offer. Appreciate your family. Laugh at the small things. Smile at a stranger.

Make love.

Create.

Express yourself before you wake up one morning and feel the weight of all the emotions you carry force you back into bed.