As a kid, I was particularly prone to angry outbursts at a whole range of people around me. I fought with my mom constantly, often about meaningless stuff. I was often angry just for the sake of being angry. I think when you're angry that often, the anger starts to lose meaning. I walked around, fists clenched, ready to be angry at any moment. I wasn't happy most of the time. If I did poorly on a test, I got angry. If my parents told me no, I got angry. In retrospect, for a lot of my life, anger was one of the only emotions I knew how to process.
Sometime in the middle of high school, I started to be able to process sadness without anger. There was no point at getting angry at death, which I learned the hard way. It took losing people around me to be able to process complex emotion, which I think is a disservice of society that still persists. With men and boys, it's about toughening up. Hardening yourself is the best response to anything that doesn't go your way. It's a shame that many men grow up feeling this is the only way they can succeed. It's a shame that if many women want to succeed, they're told to adopt these hardened male characteristics. Emotion is weakness in society today, and it's unfair.
Sometimes, I do get angry still, but I can't remember the last time I raised my voice or had an outburst. I get angry about things that are very controllable and fixable but are not fixed. I think anger, as part of a range of other emotions, can be a very useful tool for humans. It can drive us toward change. I was angry when I saw that 17 students died in a shooting in a Florida school. I know that the survivors are angry. Anger, if employed correctly, exists to spur us to action, I think. We need to teach men that anger isn't the only emotion.
I can remember the last time I cried, but I also remember all the times I tried so hard to hold back tears because crying is weakness. I can remember being in movie theaters, at funerals, watching the news, and a whole host of other situations, where all I wanted to do was cry. Instead, I felt the need to harden. I felt the need to close off. I felt the need to not let others see that I was experiencing any emotion at all. The society I grew up in taught me that it was better to show no emotion at all than to show any emotion other than strength and power.
It's odd to be that being emotional is most often associated with women. I think that men are just as emotional, but we're trained to hide it. I find that I am a considerably happier person as I work to appropriately manifest my emotions. Even when I'm sad, stressed, or yes, angry, life is just easier when you admit your emotions. I cried watching the Lord of the Rings last week ("My friends, you kneel for no one." Those little Hobbits accomplished so much!). I felt intense sadness when I heard a former classmate's mother passed away this week. Any given day, I feel a whole range of emotions, and I'm a considerably different person with a different personality than I was 10 years ago. I think people perceive me very differently now than they did then.
It takes self-reflection and training to show your emotions as a human, but I think often most acutely as a man. I still am working at it as I go along. Having the gender roles thrust upon you as a woman is, I imagine, incredibly difficult, but men have a lot of roles thrust upon them as well. I identify with a range of traditionally feminine characteristics. I know plenty of women who identify with a whole range of traditionally male characteristics. I hope that someday, instead of gender typing human behavior and emotion, we might realize that it's okay to be whoever you want to be.
Recently, the job hunt has me down. It can be very defeating to hear no several times. Also recently, I've been incredibly happy overall. My sister is doing better after some scary health concerns. I'm really settling into and enjoying life in Oxford. The weather is slowly (very slowly. Damn you, England) warming up, and the days are getting longer. It's okay to feel a range of emotions. It's okay to fluctuate. I think it's kind of funny but also a bit sad that the default answer when someone asks how you're doing is to say that you're fine even if you're not. Some days, I'm fine in the morning, I have an existential crisis at lunch, and I'm back up by dinner. I don't always have to be fine. No one is always fine. I think the world would be happier overall if we were more comfortable admitting our emotions, and I think emotions would mean more if we were forward with them.
Anyway, a bit of a tangent, but I'm enjoying getting to know myself and my emotions better, and I wanted to write a bit about it. In practical news, I'm done with classes at Oxford! Super weird. Just working on dissertation now, and I got a bar job. Heading to Ireland next week, Scotland at the beginning of April, and India in May! Seeing lots of friends in the coming months too. Life is good. Thanks for reading.
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