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From: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Accolade for Ms Julie Hoff
Message-ID: <1333@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 17:51:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1333
Posted: Fri Jul 26 17:51:04 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 06:29:31 EDT
References: <750@ihuxa.UUCP> <425@sdchema.sdchema.UUCP>
Reply-To: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious oyster)
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 47

In article <425@sdchema.sdchema.UUCP> jwp@chem.sdcsvax (John Pierce) writes:
>UCSD has been on USENET for five years or so.  During that time, there has been
>a lot of discussion about human emotions and inter-personal relationships.  I
>believe that in all of that discussion there has never been a more intelligent,
>mature, concise, truthful statement on those subjects (and perhaps not on any
>others) than that made by Julie Hoff (ihuxa!hoff):
>
> > ...I KNOW that my emotions are my own CHOICE.  Yes, folks, choice.  If I
> > cannot handle a no from you, it is my own growing that I had best tend to.
> > I also bring this into my relationships.  If I say "no thank-you" to someone
> > and they are hurt, it does move me a bit.  But I realize that to treat them
> > as any less a person than what I ask to be treated... would be looking down
> > upon them.
>
>If each of us would actively attempt to understand that, to apply it to our
>daily living, to actively accept that level of responsibility for our lives,
>the world would be a much better place.  And there would be a *lot* less drivel
>in this news group.                                                      ^^^^^^
                                                         (-: self-reference? :-)

   Seems to me some people are confused here (yup, it might even be me).  The 
word "choice" means that I decide what I feel.  Period.  It has *NOTHING* to do
with *responsibility* for one's emotions.  They are totally separate
considerations.  I have felt the emotional pain involved in a break-up.  I did
not "choose" to feel the pain; the only choice involved was to understand why
the pain was there, and to do something about it.  I also get a feeling of
peace and fulfillment when I ride my bicycle down quiet country roads.  Again,
I don't *choose* to feel that way; the choice comes in when I decide what to
do with my afternoon-- after all, I could have agonized over world hunger,
like some people seem to want us to constantly do.
   To address more specifically the above quotation, when saying "no" to
somebody "move[s] me a bit," that is emotion; and you chose what to do about
it, not what to feel, since the feeling was there already.  Now, you may
be rationalizing the emotion away, but that still hasn't prevented you from
*feeling* it, however quickly you dispose of it.  
   Let's just hope that you two don't start rationalizing away the "up"
emotions as well as the "down" (I didn't want to use good/bad, since pain isn't
necessarily bad).

[Just in case I didn't write as eloquently as I'd wish, here's a summary:
 One doesn't choose to feel, one chooses to be responsible for one's feelings.]
-- 
 - joel "vo" plutchak
{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster

"Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to say that this is
all confusion."