Cling

Like wet clothing sticksto the skin in getting out of a pool, so emotions stick to thoughts in trying to escape from the sentimental realm of feelings. In professional situations or ones that require an objective point of view, we're always told to remove ourselves from how we feel about a subject or our initial impressions of it.

But that never works. No matter how hard we try to shake off the water of emotions, the clothing of our thoughts is still sopping wet and clinging all around our bodies, snaring us in the familiar habits of mind. But in all actuality, that's not the beginning of the story, but rather the end. It all begins with how we got into sentiment in the first place, how we found ourselves in that strange pool that later lingered with us everywhere we went.

In childhood, we were given no choice...we learned what it was to feel, what it meant to be sad, happy, to like or dislike. With time, however, we learned to manage our habits of mind. We figured out just what it was to let ourselves feel. We stood at the edge of that pool before us, wondering whether we should get in. Maybe a toe went in ever so slowly to test the waters, maybe we had to think long and hard, or maybe it was as simple as a running start and a leap.

One way or the other, we all took that plunge. We immersed ourselves in this mysterious world of emotions. Like ice-cold water, the feelings struck through our bodies and our minds in ways that we had not known. It wasn't necessarily what we all wanted, and certainly nothing that we in any way deserved, but it's where we found ourselves each day. Suddenly, the way that gravity worked in our lives changed...it was the sensations around us that determined what we did, not just the straight reason for which the human mind is so well-known.

And then we tried to get out. The problem with getting away from it all is that it follows is. Once you're in, you don't just walk out unscathed. Emotions, thoughts, sympathies...they all change you, no less than cuts, bruises, and fractures do to your body. Everything plays out in its own way, leaves its own marks, and we find ourselves standing once again on dry land, shaking off the cold of emotions that we had grown so accustomed to because we find that we can't always let ourselves be governed like that...