>It's like entropy: the emotional bullshit in a closed system only increases. Until one person leaves, or you bleed off the pressure outside it.
I dono. my experience has been that the emotional bullshit comes and goes, like the tide. Part of that is, well, it's not a closed system, but part of it is that social bullshit, in my experience, mostly goes away when you rationalize it;
By 'rationalize it' I don't mean 'make it rational' I mean make up some (mostly bullshit) rational explanation for the emotional bullshit. I say mostly bullshit because, well, emotions are not logical, and all logical models for explaining emotions that I know of are really terrible (I mean, not very predictive) models.
But still, assigning a believable logical explanation to a difficult feeling, in my experience, makes that feeling not so difficult anymore. It makes me feel like I'm in control of myself, and this... makes me feel vastly better. If I feel like I'm in control, or even that it's /possible/ to control, I find that letting go and focusing on something else is way easier. If I don't feel like I have control, it's really hard not to obsess. (which seems like the opposite of what I would do if I was designing the system; why should I spend effort on something I can't effect? I want to spend effort where that effort has effect. Fuck you, limbic system.)
I think the other reason it seems to come and go in waves is that there are at least two people involved. If I am in good emotional shape, I can act as a buffer for the other person's emotional bullshit, and the total amount of bullshit in the system is much less than it would be otherwise. On the other hand, if I am feeling the effects of the social bullshit at the same time as the other person, the effect is almost multiplicative.
I dono. my experience has been that the emotional bullshit comes and goes, like the tide. Part of that is, well, it's not a closed system, but part of it is that social bullshit, in my experience, mostly goes away when you rationalize it;
By 'rationalize it' I don't mean 'make it rational' I mean make up some (mostly bullshit) rational explanation for the emotional bullshit. I say mostly bullshit because, well, emotions are not logical, and all logical models for explaining emotions that I know of are really terrible (I mean, not very predictive) models.
But still, assigning a believable logical explanation to a difficult feeling, in my experience, makes that feeling not so difficult anymore. It makes me feel like I'm in control of myself, and this... makes me feel vastly better. If I feel like I'm in control, or even that it's /possible/ to control, I find that letting go and focusing on something else is way easier. If I don't feel like I have control, it's really hard not to obsess. (which seems like the opposite of what I would do if I was designing the system; why should I spend effort on something I can't effect? I want to spend effort where that effort has effect. Fuck you, limbic system.)
I think the other reason it seems to come and go in waves is that there are at least two people involved. If I am in good emotional shape, I can act as a buffer for the other person's emotional bullshit, and the total amount of bullshit in the system is much less than it would be otherwise. On the other hand, if I am feeling the effects of the social bullshit at the same time as the other person, the effect is almost multiplicative.