We live in an age of emocracy. In stark difference to most of humanity’s history, emotions overtly govern our private, professional, and public lives[1]. In this and a few subsequent posts, I will explore the question of how, when, and why the shift from keeping emotions “under cover” towards today’s unembarrassed emocracy happened[2]. My first hypothesis is: The rise of emocracy was strongly favored by the invention and (later) popularization of psychology.
First, get annoyed. Forget about happiness. Nobody ever got happy by trying hard to get happy. If you tried, you know you only ended up feeling unhappy about your shortcomings in being – or becoming – happy. So if you did try, stop it immediately.
Summer is the cruellest season[1]. The time of scratched knees and bruised elbows, sunburn, mosquito bites, and rash from brushing against stinging nettles; the time of couples, friends, and families squabbling over holiday destinations, over choices of rented rooms, foreign foods, and beaches (or mountains), and over what everyone wanted but never got (which is all the others’ fault, of course); the time of existential angst as every perfect moment bites off another mouthful of the remaining halcyon days[2], the end of which is as predictable as the outcome of a tarot reading[3].
