Feelings... nothing more than feelings

I am a very emotional person. This is different than being a feeler, as I've demonstrated two posts ago, but I'm sure it's still in some way related to my brain type. I dunno. It seems like the older I've gotten, the easier it has been to let these emotions out. While adolescence certainly plays a big part in that, it seems more like the catalyst than the constant cause.

Whoa, alliteration. That was actually an accident.

What I mean to say is that while my emotional side certainly came out during adolescence, it looks as if it's going to stay with me for a while. This is probably a shortsighted point of view, but as we know I usually make decisions based on how I feel. And this is how I feel:

That I am emotional. Not emo, just emotional.

That I often make decisions when I am still entrenched in emotions and this often results in poor choices.

That events like Nationals, in which I am taken out of my real life and placed among a tightly-knit group of friends in a unique environment, can be devastating when it ends.

Anyone who was with me last week in SC can probably relate to that last statement. This is admittedly true. But I have noticed that different people deal with it differently. Personally, I cried myself to sleep the night of the afterparty. When I didn't break, that was okay. When my competition was over, I just focused on spending as much time with my friends as I could. The last day of the tournament, I told myself that I'd be a coach again next year and go to plenty of tournaments.

I was fine until about midnight that night. Then my heart began to sink lower and lower until I actually became physically affected. I had to sit down and couldn't talk very much. I smiled a little at people and tried to listen as my friends talked about crazy plans for the new debate resolutions, but I couldn't sense anything other than the overwhelming emotion of the moment.

I went back to my hotel room that night with the same feeling pushing on my chest. I felt a little sick. Jake was a huge pal, he kept my spirits up as well as anyone could. He brought me out of my sadness just enough to keep me alive on the car ride back to our hotel. Jake, I know you won the credit for this blog post already in a game of poker, but you deserve it. Thank you for being a friend and warming my soul. I don't know if I would have made it alone.

Before going to bed I read a post by a friend of mine about his experience with NCFCA, and here's the thing: It wouldn't have affected me in the same way if I hadn't read it right then. See, my emotions can cause me to make bad choices at times, but I believe God also uses them to enhance my perception of His truth. This power can be abused by people who manipulate the emotions of others to cause them to agree with them, but it is also a powerful force for good, and I think we often overlook that fact. If I hadn't read that, I can't vouch for how I'd be right now. Currently, I am enjoying the life I've been placed in and have been taking advantage of all opportunities handed to me. I am loving people, although my mom would prefer if I went to bed right now, so if I'm going to be consistent I should probably wrap this up.

The other thing that has helped me has been distraction. Emotions are powerful things, and if we choose to wallow in them for unhealthy periods of time, they can prevent us from being who God wants us to be. I got back from my trip and was immediately thrust back into everyday life. This may not sound like a good thing, but for me it was.

This is what I often dread about coming back from Nats - the abrupt reentrance into an old, now unfamiliar, almost alien world. On the ride back to meet up with my mom in Rhode Island, I had difficulty remembering where I lived. I kept picturing my old house in the woods. I was worried that I would experience the transition the way I had in previous years: Disillusionment at the unamazing makeup of real, ordinary routine. I usually suffer from "speech withdrawl," a condition in which I usually withdraw from speaking as a result of withdrawing from speech.

However, this year I had one day. One day in which to feel depressed about being ripped away from my life in South Carolina and retreat into a hole. I spent that day planning the things I did today. Today I went to the first rehearsal for Godspell, which was my first musical. The same cast that originally did it two years ago has gotten back together, and this time we can sing! It's a reunion with some new faces, and I saw some people tonight that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Thank you, God, for that. I'm sure it would have been character-building for me to retreat into that hole of depression and rely on You to pull me out, but I know that You don't want me to be that way. You have bigger and better plans for me than that, and I am ready. Let's do it.

Boundless

Time has a habit of hiding his face,

Turning away so as not to be found.

When, to reflect, we turn our gaze around,

He has passed by and left void in his place.

Though we may beckon him, he never stays,

Though we construct our own temporal bounds,

Endless refinement of eloquent sounds

Spanning five years was complete in five days.

I have no methods, nor know I of ways

In which to grasp the elusivist Next,

All I can tell is the Next has begun.

This ought not stop us from searching the haze,

Finding the charges inherent in text,

Don't close your eyes, don't pretend the job's done.

For those who care, this is a Petrarchan sonnet written in dactylic trimeter. It was in part inspired by Jake Johnson.

I'm a Feeler and Proud of It

A note: This post was inspired by Jake Johnson, a fine fellow I might add. Check out his blog and maybe he'll post something new!

Yeah, so about the brain type thing. By virtue of my brain type, which is ENFP, I am not as into understanding and classifying brain types as, say, the aforementioned Jake Johnson, who is an INTJ. However, this past week I went on a road trip with Jake to the NCFCA National Tournament in South Carolina, and the discussion of brain types inevitably came up.

I did notice something interesting and tangible about the whole brain type thing, though. I won't get into the details of how braintypes are defined, because others who know more about it would most likely be correcting my description left and right. If you'd like to find out what your brain type is and possibly become obsessed with it, visit this link. Basically, the "F" part of my brain type means that I am a feeler. I base my decisions upon what feels best, not what is logical.

Before being indoctrinated with brain type theory, I was extremely offended at being labeled a "feeler." Was this implying that I was ruled by emotion and those who were "thinkers" were cold, calculating, logical, intelligent people who only thought logically and were unaffected by emotion? That certainly didn't reflect the real world. Everyone experiences emotion, and I knew I was plenty logical in my thinking.

However, I have now been shown the light. The classification of "feeler" and "thinker" is not so much which we experience, but which we allow to shape our decisions. I could live with that. Yes, it's true. I do base my decisions more on what I feel than on what I think. Often, I will immediately deduce what the most effective or beneficial course of action would be and then abandon it for one that sounds like it would be more fun.

Now for the tangible example of this dichotomy. Jake brought a chessboard on the trip, and I love chess, although I am a notoriously lazy chess player. I immediately deduced that Jake must be a serious player if he brought along a magnetic board designed specifically for playing in the car, and so the best thing to do would be to avoid looking like a fool and not bring up the option. However, playing a game sounded more fun, so I chose that instead.

Of course, he was a serious player and put me in checkmate after a scant number of moves. I expected it, but I did it anyway, and I'm glad I did. The rest of the week we played chess games constantly, and I got better at it. But I did so by realizing my natural tendencies to do what felt best and not think through things first. Every time I went to move a piece, I saw a move that looked elegant or symmetrical and went with that. However, after losing a few times, I decided to consider thinking about what I was doing for more than two seconds.

On the last day of the trip, I played my best game with him. I still lost, but I thought about every move and every move was a legitimate one. He's just better than me, and that's going to be the same way for a while. Currently we're playing long-term games on RedHotPawn.com, in which we have three days to make each move. This is already helping me a lot to tune out my feeler side and tune into my thinker side.

This is but the first of a flood of posts about Nationals... get ready for the rain.

Andrew Cass...

is going to bed.

Andrew Cass...

is tired.

Andrew Cass...

Is giving his impression of Twitter.

A sudden burst of pointless creativity... what else is new?

If wishes were fishes, hunting in a wishing well would be shooting fish in a barrel.
If wishes were my advice, we wouldn't have an overpopulation problem.
If wishes were cell phones, I'd have one.
If wishes were songs with the 1-5-6-4 chord progression, I would go insane.
If wishes were rips in the fabric of the time-space continuum, I would be my own uncle.
If wishes were monkeys banging on typewriters, the big bang theory still wouldn't be plausible.
If wishes were the letter "T," Sesame Street would be a little more predictable.
If wishes were your face... anyway.
If wishes were the best possible response to the question, "does this make me look fat?" I might date more.
If wishes were stale butter, I wouldn't wish for things.

Five days and counting...

So I'm trying to write my graduation speech, and it's not going. How do you thank everybody in three minutes? What kind of a cut-rate production is this?