What are those emotions we experience daily to one degree or another? A better approach may be to simply list the emotions a human can experience. Bear with me as this is necessary to explore a theory I have formed from observation and is not complete.
In no particular order, but often as antonyms:
Love
Hate
Sympathy
Empathy
Happiness
Sadness
Loneliness
Despair
Hope
Tranquility
Turmoil
Thoughtful
Carefree
Guilt
The list could be extended greatly, but for today’s discussion these will suffice.
I have observed a change in myself, I think, and am curious if other “Boomers” have experienced similar changes. The comparison of a young me to the me of today is probably underestimated because recalling “the way I was” is from memory, and we all know how memories can dull. Memories are like rocks. When first formed they have sharp edges, some sharp and jagged enough to cut. But as a gem collector would smooth gems in a tumbler with grit, time is the grit to our memories, smoothing the sharp edges and polishing those surfaces. So comparing those time worn memories to more recent emotions may not be a fair analysis, yet if I think upon a memory deeply enough I can start to recall more of its initial sharpness.
But back to our original thought captured in the title “The frequency of Feeling.” I have observed the range with which I experience any of the list of emotions has declined. I have less extreme and shorter durations of anger (actually fill in the blank with any emotion) than when I was a younger man.
Frequency is a multifaceted word. In this analogy, I envision a scale ranging from 1 to 10 with 10 being the most extreme. I also apply the word to the number of times a notable emotion is evoked over a period of time. If expressed in a sentence it would read “I become angry less often, and when I do I am not as angry as I would have been were I younger.”
I have no doubt one of the major contributors is a function of living longer. Perspective is a function of the observed and the length of time of observation. Surely many of you can recall as a child how far apart one Christmas was from the next year’s or how long summer vacation out of school seemed. Perspective. Further explored, to a one-year-old, one year is 100% of their life experience. To a two-year-old, one year is 50%. To this writer, one year is .015%. During my 66 trips around the sun I have experienced the list of emotions many, many times often in extreme degree.
Then perhaps the lower frequency of feelings is like a balloon. Any of you having blown up a balloon recognize the difficulty of inflating a balloon for the first time. As kids we all experienced the simple joy of squeezing the neck as air escaped making a variety of squeaks and noises or flying across a room if released at once. Each time the balloon was inflated, it was easier and the elasticity less resistant resulting in a larger balloon. It may be my emotional elasticity has been stretched so much as to easily absorb a range of feelings with less and less resistance.
Or could it be that over time there are fewer and fewer “firsts.” There are more things I have experienced and less things I have never done in relative terms. There are fewer jokes I hear for the first time. I am less and less surprised by the levels of absurdity in society, etc. Attributed to the wisest man in his time, King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes “”Nothing is new under the sun.” In modern vernacular, “been there, done that.” By no means has my life been as exciting as that of Walter Mitty nor as isolated as a Tibetan Monk, but I have had my share of experiences.
Please don’t read anything into this observation as described. It is not a cry of despair or help. Like most all of you, I have lived, and plan on continuing to live a full and satisfying life. I am content in all things, some more than others.
It is just an observation of the sine curve of emotion flattening a bit in my life, and I suspect in many others. Had I to do it all again, knowing what I know now, I would tell a younger me to take the highs down and bring the lows up, trading for the inverse in later life. At some point in time I started asking myself if a decision would make a difference in 20 years. It’s a higher level of “who cares!” As my war hero father–in-law famously would say, “whatever.”
Doug Lively is a lifelong Augustan and local columnist for the Augusta Press. He previously served as a member of the Augusta Aviation Commission.
