When you're strange - 1

Something I had written all of six years ago:

Emotions are the basis of life. Without emotions man is just an animal, a savage. Intellect, learning, education, wealth, status, everything is just a farce. A man devoid of emotions is like a ship's sail without wind, like a skydiver without his parachute, like the morning without the dawn, like the night without the moon. Faith can move mountains but emotions can build them.

In today's materialistic world how many of us can claim to have an iota of emotion left in us? To be emotional or sentimental is considered to be weak , to be without manhood. What a wrong notion this is. People with feelings are the strongest people on earth. These are the people who can feel. They are not senseless because they believe in the very basis of life. These people are sensitive, sensitive to the world around them, sensitive to other' s feelings and emotions, they care for the world and are their brothers' keepers. These are the people who make up the true brethren. These are true men who can balance materialism with feelings.

I am told so many times to forget feelings and sentiments, leave them behind in my quest for knowledge and learning, to forget about such trivial things or at least keep romanticism under control; which is another way of telling me to become an unfeeling brute. Yet I am convinced that this is the only salvation for mankind, which is fast forgetting values. Not the kind of petty, shallow emotions which rule our everyday life, and our actions. Not the kind that make us act in anger or fear. Not the kind that make us act in ways that hurt or harm. Not the kind that teaches man to fight, kill, maim, burn, wage war. But the other kind of deeper, truer emotions that every one of us should cultivate. The kind that heal, that teach us to love, to work for the greater glory of God and mankind. The kind that makes us gentle, thoughtful, disciplined, temperate. The kind that let our thoughts and emotions soar like birds, to daydream and be lost in contemplation and meditation.

So gentle reader, what do you choose? The path to material wealth, riches, exterior pomp and show or the deeper, truer, emotional upliftment of the heart and soul. The choice is of course yours. You may dismiss this as some poor misguided, romantic soul's silly words but someday you' ll know better.

That day I shall have won a great victory.

PS: I used to write strange stuff.