Mind Games

Episode 30: Dealing with Stuck Emotions
Hey guys! So much has been going on lately, I'd say mostly for the good. However, I've been doing a terrible job of keeping up with everyone. I don't feel too bad though, as LAMATB hasn't been nearly full of energy as it used to be and I know everyone else has been terribly busy. I don't want to get into to many details, but basically my grades are great, I'm hanging out with people all of the time, I've played countless holes of Mario Golf, got myself a nice girlfriend from my public speaking class, my major change has been working out well, and my hair is a bit longer now. But I'll go more in depth on all that another time.

Anyways, I wanted to talk a little bit about the mind today. I've always liked talking about it, and have always been interested in how people think before they do things... and writing a speech on Video Game violence has brought some of that back to me. But I actually want to talk about what the mind retains against your will. Emotions your brain sticks with and plays games with you, and unfortunatly doesn't give itself a solution.

Here are a couple of examples:
My roommate David had the best girlfriend in the world in High School. He made the hugest mistake in the world and lost her for good. Yet to this day he still tries to talk to her, thinks about her a lot, and send her things on her birthday. His brain can comprehend that she wont take him back, yet the emotions stuck in his brain wont let it go.

Another example would be the opposite, one where the emotion is bottled up. Some examples of that include getting with a girl and have another admit that they like you right after(that has happened to me this fall as well) and just constantly thinking about something or someone.

It's basically just the constant hope that something will happen dispite all odds that keeps things stuck there.

I have looked for many possible solutions to this, for as chill and carefree as I claim to be, I still get this problem on occasion, so I was trying to find a way to tackle it for good. Unfortunately, the only solution in the end is time and realism. In the case of emotional attachment here is the issue: You can try to make it seem like everything is normal and continue on, but that tends to make things harder. You can try to quit cold turkey, but you will always find yourself looking at there facebook or talking to them eventually or wondering how there doing. And that just seems childish. Trust me, I've seen it from a lot of the people here at ODU, so I'm guessing it happens to almost everyone.

I'm not going to talk about my own dealings with this, just because it's unnecessary to do so. Because honestly, unlike a lot of other people I can control it very well, so it doesn't really effect my life. That's where the realism comes in. Just be real about the situation and move on. You have school, and friends, and your life to live so who cares. I understand that some people cant do this, leaving time as the only painful option left. But I just thought I'd let you know that somewhere, way way in the back of my head, what I really want is and might always be there, poking it's head out at random times. But you can't always have what you want, you can only hope for it to turn out that way. And I certainly hope it does. As does anyone else when they meet someone new that they like or lose someone they held close, or made any mistake they wished they could take back.

Strong feelings about anything effect people really hard these days, especially in our age group, and really especially with members of our crew. So I guess it's no wonder a lot of people seem to be having depression in record numbers these days. I've never really had a mental breakdown, or feelings so out of control where I have to write about them, but they are there sometimes. You just have to be an adult about it. So stay cool at keep moving on, because life usually does turn out to be much better then the trivial things that are stuck in our brains and plague us today. And who knows... your dream and mine might come true someday, just try not to think about it for now!
~Andy