My dear brother shared an emotional text that he had written. I told him that I liked it very much and could truly feel the emotion he conveyed with his words.
“Thank you for caring when it comes to feelings,” he replied.
Nicely said, but also a little sad, because it’s not a given that others truly care about feelings, perhaps even less so when you’re a man.
Feelings are supporting actors in a life where words and actions have the leading roles. Of course these protagonists matter. We can’t demand a raise based on a feeling, expect funding by presenting an intuition, or let a doctor perform a heart transplant based on a hunch.
But feelings still have an undeservedly small place in our lives. Even when feelings are asked for, it’s not really what people want. A question like, “What’s your feeling?” expects an answer closer to, “Based on the statistics…”
We can’t let feelings take over completely, that would be chaos. But we can give them more attention and space, both for ourselves and for others.
We can strive for a world where feelings are acknowledged and valued, where emotional expression is seen as strength, not weakness.
That’s how I feel.