…we ourselves are only fragments of existence, and our lived life does not fill the whole of our capacity to feel and to conceive.
—Paul Valéry—
Our feelings are bigger than we are. The love, sorrow, fear, or rage that any one off us feels at any moment is just a thin slice of a great stream of feeling that runs through all of humanity. To experience strong emotions in a crowd, for instance, takes us out of ourselves. Mob anger can be viciously destructive. The mob joy can be transcendent and the difference between one individual and the mob is that each one of us can choose, every moment, what we will do with our emotions. Each of us can feel rage and choose to express it without harm.
We can feel sorrow and survive it. As well we can choose to dwell with feelings that console and enhance our spirits, and we can choose to let go of those that diminish us. With feelings, as with everything else, the law of life is change. We not always feel as we feel now, If we accept our feelings as they come, and try to feel them fully as we’re able, we shall become more unified with our fellow human creatures, and with all existence. Pressure builds up behind a dam. I will let my feelings flow.