i have an appt i’m nervous about and then i was thinking about these passages I read:
But it seems to me that emotion and its expression are almost the same thing. Let us take your cat: now suppose we shave her tail, so that it cannot shall I say perscopate or bristle; suppose we attach a board to her back, so that it cannot arch; suppose we then exhibit a displeasing sight – a sportive dog, for instance. Now, she cannot express her emotions fully: Quaere: will she feel them fully? She will feel them, to be sure, since we have suppressed only the grossest manifestations; but will she feel them fully? Is not the arch, the bottle-brush, an integral part and not merely a potent reinforcement – though it is that too?
…and you have no doubt taken notice of the impassive faces of the captured men? It is always so, I believe? And does it not seem to you that this suppression, this denial of the outward signs, and as I believe reinforcers if not actually ingredients of the distress – does it not seem to you that this stoical appearance of indifference in fact diminishes the pain?
this is insane i cannot believe it worked so well. like, almost instantly i felt the vibrations go down
As long as you process the emotions eventually for growth, I see nothing wrong with this friend
I once heard that the part of you that knows you are afraid is not afraid itself. This might be why your trick or others like reciting the Benne Gesserit litany against fear can actually work.
Cats are known for being able to hide their pain/injuries very well. Interesting to see them mentioned in the passage - what’s the source?
it’s from Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian
literall–
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Trigger warning: OP uses a colloquial definition of a word instead of the primary definition.
