this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Ok, I have more questions if you don't mind: Do you interpret relieving your emotions by crying as being weak? Or perhaps feeling emotions as being weak? And do you find women more flawed, because they're physically weaker than men?
Yeah, obviously, would you say that it's a sign of strength ?
"Emotion" is a vague term. Some emotions like bravery(, often a borderline foolishness,) are assimilated with strength. Some emotions like the feeling of defeat, self-pity, the lack of resilience, the fear of authority/punishment that makes you betray others/ideals, that's weak. Always interesting to see how Chelsea Manning is stronger than a lot of men in this regard. Men love to fight, so kinda appreciate to be hurt in a way, and are proud of their scars.
Some emotions are beautiful, such as the one expressed in poetry, others are ugly and you don't need examples to get what i mean.
It's easier to exclude men from external beauty and women from external strength than it is to exclude them from internal beauty and strength, respectively.
We have our qualities and flaws, some women are stronger than some men and some men are more beautiful( inside&outside) than women, and it's reductive to stop at these two adjectives, as well as obviously erroneous to draw conclusion on an individual from generalities.
Here's what i answered to a previous comment if you're interested :
Admittedly, beauty is more useful in times of peace than strength, if i count the benefits(, women can give birth and that's the most important thing in Nature), women have more of them than men, but if we can keep some of our qualities i won't say no.
Thank you for taking your time and answering my questions. It's always interesting to get to understand other people's views a bit more. I have some quite different experiences from yours.
You're asking me, whether I would say that crying is a sign of strength. I don't view it neither as a sign of strength, nor as a sign of weakness. I take it as a natural reaction to overload of stress/emotion/pain. Being able to cry is physiologically beneficial (you get rid of cortisol) and psychologically it can help you process the things you're going through more quickly. Trying to appear though by not crying seems counterproductive to me, but I understand in some cultures it is not socially acceptable to cry, especially for men.
When it comes to emotions, I agree it's a vague term. I use the word for the very basic emotions of sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust, but you’re right that there’s a huge diversity and nuance. I think people need to understand their own emotions to be able to work with them consciously. If I was unable to regulate my emotions, it would be hard for me to make rational decisions. If I suppressed my emotions, I would still be influenced by them, but I would have no conscious control over them, which would again result in limiting my rationality severely.
I find the terms inner strength and beauty to be also very vague. I know a person, who's super emotional in an uncontrollable way, you'd definitely find them weak, but when they were in a very tough situation, they proved to be totally unbreakable (they acted selflessly despite severe personal damage and were able to save several friends from a similar fate).
I agree with you that it's reductive to stop on two adjectives. And when it comes to beauty and strength, I value intelligence and compassion much more in both men and women.
Generally, I think it's a good thing there is a different mix of characteristics in different people. I don't see any reason to propagate just one way for men and one way for women. People are diverse and I think it's good for the whole society to embrace the diversity, because that makes the whole society stronger and more flexible, especially in a changing environment.
I'll be glad to hear more of your thoughts!
To me, if you're crying you're admitting that something is stronger than you, that you're powerless, and i still find it useless, i guess that i just have a bad image of it(, it can be beautiful though, like tears of joy, or of an emotion which isn't defeat). But i clearly(, and subconsciously,) don't treat men, women, or children, in the same point of view in regard to crying, i'd never think of saying "man up" to a woman hurt to the point of tears, yet i find it admirable when a man swallow his pain, and straighten his profile in order to act after whatever happened, that's the common thinking, i'm not the weird one here(, even if my descriptions are very imperfect), but since modernity changed so many things they may end up suppressing the differences between men and women, or not, w/e.
On the contrary, suppressing your emotions helps to act rationally without being overwhelmed by them, and i.m.o. there's no real difference between emotions and reason, since our feelings can be explained rationally, we're often saying that "reason ignore the heart's own reasons", but that's not true, we are indeed influenced by subconscious feelings that we would be unable to analyse, but that's a minor side and i don't make a distinction between the cold reasoning and the hot emotions, i'm deciding with both a'd i think almost everyone does the same.
100%, i realized it when i was writing the examples, and the example you gave me is another very good one, you can indeed find effeminate/weak persons who are "tough motherf*ckers", i didn't give enough thought behind what "internally strong" may mean, and it also depends on the situation, it's not because you're weak or ugly internally at one time of the time that you can't act beautifully or strongly at another time.
Well, it doesn't come from me and i have a story and some good memories from it. But in a few words, i asked someone special(, ~9 years ago,) if he had a motto, and he told me that the masonic triangle is "Strength · Beauty · Wisdom", i still haven't checked if it's true(, but discovered a few years later that it's in the Kabbalah). It stayed in my mind and i naturally decided to apply it to men and women and divide it in internally//externally. Just to say that somewhere.
While reductive, i think it has a lot of truth in it.
Men have testosterone, have sexual fantasy when they touch women, and read comics when they imagine themselves fighting.
Women have estrogens, in their fantasy they imagine themselves being touched, and read romantic novels when they're preparing themselves for the unavoidable desire they'll attract.
Yeah, i'll need to edit this message, if you're reading this line give me 30-40mn i want to do something first.
I'll wait.