DailyJim: Day after the eclipse—numb, terrified, and/or suppressed?

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is the episode for Tuesday, April 9th, just about an hour after midnight. I want to talk about the day after the eclipse, and is it numb, terrified, suppressed, or what is it?

So i've had this weird feeling ever since the eclipse and it's been happening today too it's i can't tell if i am i just got so overwhelmed by emotion by how powerful the experience was for me that things short-circuited in me and i like i just shut off emotionally in some ways, and i'm thinking about how this has happened to other people in my life um or did i experience maybe it's and or right did i experience such a profound sense of awe the old school form of awe where it is this maybe deep fear like being impressed by something but but also deeply afraid of it? And have I just been in this state of shock, of fear, at how short life is, how small I am in the whole scope of the universe.

The fear of death, the fear of things like that? But and or is it my reaction to how I was feeling, or rather the reactions of the people around me and how I was feeling so raw, so, so moved and didn't get the impression that other people around me were feeling that moved.

And kind of that alienation that happens in thinking I experienced something and other people just didn't get it.

And, you know, I think, yes, it may be one of those first two, and it may be something else, but I think that third one is there. I think it's strongly there. Because I was just watching an episode of this TV show called Becker. And in the episode, Ted Danson is the guy. He's a doctor, and he's going into town to pick up some food. He's late and meeting some friends, and he gets on the train, and there's this older woman who doesn't know where she's going and he's trying to help her and then he's like yeah but i gotta go and he's a kind of grumpy old guy you know he's a grumpy guy in his i don't know 40s 50s or something he's like i gotta get out of here and um he ends up taking her all the way because this poor woman is lost she's probably in her 70s or so and, when she finally arrives she sits down and she can't go up the stairs and he's like i just go go up the stairs. It's just right there. You just go out of the train station. You go right there. And she says, he would have been 40 today.

And she's talking about her son and she starts talking about how it was just a normal day. He was in the office and he was overlooking, uh, downtown New York and, and they just had spoken on the phone and she, you know, he hung up because he had to to go to a meeting. He was going to call her back later. And then she was cooking breakfast and washing the dishes. Then she turned on the news and saw what had happened. And for those of you who are American or other people around the world, maybe you'll know this depending on your age, but she was talking about the 9-11 attacks and her son passing away in those those attacks. And I just felt a flood of tears.

I think.

There are some moments in our lives that are so powerful that rip us open, that just tear down all the emotional walls that we've built up and we just feel.

And then we confront the other people, or rather we realize that we are around other people who might still have their walls up or who haven't gone through such a powerful emotional experience and aren't experiencing that raw depth of feeling.

And I know sometimes when that happens, when I'm in a conversation with somebody and I'm feeling it deep and they're just like, oh, let's stop talking. I don't want to feel the anger. I don't want to feel the sadness. I don't want to feel this. I don't want to feel that. And they want to shut the conversation down. I can feel myself shut down quick, like completely. completely.

And maybe that's what happened yesterday on top of other things. But I think that may be one of the largest things that happened. And my body said, man, you are not going to find people to relate to you on this. You know, ironically, there's 30 million people who looked at it. I'm sure some of them will relate at that level. Um, but this.

There's a debate that I've been struggling with in normal life, quote-unquote normal life, day-to-day life that doesn't have deep, powerful emotional experiences to that level, of how much do I feel surrounded by people who seem to be, pushing down or ignoring a lot of the feelings that they're having. How much do I express in the area of suppression? Because that creates conflict. If I'm expressing and the person wants to suppress, that can create a lot of conflict.

How much have I just given up at times and said, ah, let me just close off completely?

And so I'm really trying to pay attention to this because I think other people are going through this. I know someone on Twitter the other day was talking about how she lost her father recently, and it's been one of the hardest things for her. And she's afraid that if she continues to open up, she's going to lose even more people in her life for being too raw or being too inconsistent when it comes to work or whatever it may be. And i know i'm not the only one experiencing that that dilemma of this is what i'm feeling and i want to express it and other people saying stop expressing it i don't want you to express it i don't want to express it i don't want to feel it so you better stop feeling it what, i kind of hearken back to at my mom's funeral where i was going to give a speech where I did I wrote a poem and spoke and a friend of mine saying like just make it upbeat and celebrate her life it's like what the hell is my mom's funeral I'm not allowed to cry at my mom's funeral if I'm not allowed to cry then when the hell am I allowed to cry and yeah I just.

I don't know. So just reflecting on that more and how, when I think, it's a question I ask myself a lot, like I said, in day-to-day life. But when something hits me so hard, moves me so hard, and other people don't seem to be so moved, do I? I don't know. I think I just sometimes shut down and say, maybe people will never be moved. If you can't be moved by that, what the hell will move you? You know, what do you need? What do people need? It's almost like they're sleeping, like people are sleeping and you smack them across the face with a total solar eclipse and people are like, oh, that was cool. What? What do you mean that was cool? I'm the person, I don't know, I see something very small, like a certain rainbow or a certain, And like even a puddle, I'm like, oh my gosh, look at that puddle. That puddle's amazing. Like just the, I don't know, just the sensitivity to life, I suppose.

Anyways, I've been talking about this for a while and I am tired because I didn't sleep well last night. And I thought maybe it was fear, maybe it was who knows.

But yeah, there's still a weird feeling here. I'm still going to explore it. So that was kind of my reflection for today. Curious how that lands with you.

And talk to you all soon. Bye.