An attempt...
8 Aug 2003 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecat...to draw some defining lines around the phrase "emotional extravagance."
In my brain, it's still a fuzzy concept of the "I know it when it irritates me" variety.
It's not just, or even primarily, about displaying emotions. It's also, or even more, about stuff like amplifying one's emotions, spending a lot of time and energy thinking about and talking about one's emotions, expecting/wanting other people to spend a lot of time thinking/talking about one's emotions, letting one's emotions be primary drivers of one's actions, letting one's emotions be primary determinants of the life story one carries around in one's head and tells others.
(All that stuff would be happening publicly/semi-publicly in order to count, since if it's happening only inside one's head, I wouldn't know about it and it wouldn't irritate me.)
Unpacking "amplifying one's emotions": In my experience, if I have a feeling of mild to moderate intensity, I can do three things: I can leave it alone, I can damp/suppress it (not snuff it completely, but lower its intensity), or I can increase it / whip it up. Amplifying an emotion would be deliberately increasing its intensity.
More as it occurs to me.
In my brain, it's still a fuzzy concept of the "I know it when it irritates me" variety.
It's not just, or even primarily, about displaying emotions. It's also, or even more, about stuff like amplifying one's emotions, spending a lot of time and energy thinking about and talking about one's emotions, expecting/wanting other people to spend a lot of time thinking/talking about one's emotions, letting one's emotions be primary drivers of one's actions, letting one's emotions be primary determinants of the life story one carries around in one's head and tells others.
(All that stuff would be happening publicly/semi-publicly in order to count, since if it's happening only inside one's head, I wouldn't know about it and it wouldn't irritate me.)
Unpacking "amplifying one's emotions": In my experience, if I have a feeling of mild to moderate intensity, I can do three things: I can leave it alone, I can damp/suppress it (not snuff it completely, but lower its intensity), or I can increase it / whip it up. Amplifying an emotion would be deliberately increasing its intensity.
More as it occurs to me.
no subject
Date: 10 Aug 2003 07:45 am (UTC)Your list includes much of what I think emotional extravagance is, except "expecting others to react to your emotions without your having to say how you feel" doesn't seem to apply to what I'm thinking about.
I certainly indulge myself in and whip up some emotions. I don't do it frequently in public. I'm more on the minimalist side of things.
I'm aware that emotional minimalism comes with its own set of problems/flaws; mainly, sometimes people don't know how I'm feeling or how strongly I'm feeling when they should, I have a hard time knowing what I want because I don't have strong feelings, I have a hard time making decisions because ditto, sometimes people consider me boring because I'm not effusive.
But emotional minimalism doesn't bug me the way emotional extravagance does. (I repeat, it's my problem that it bugs me.)