Emotions ~ Real or Not Real?

To be human is to feel ~ or at least that's the way I look at it. I call it 'raw emotion,'  that moment when you are stripped of your masks, titles, sarcasm, whatever it may be and are completely vulnerable to your surroundings ~ if not completely vulnerable, then absolutely revealed. I'm reading World War Z, and I came across an 'interview' that talked about Paul Redeker, the crazed but genius man void of all feeling. "Paul Redeker always believed, well perhaps not always, but at least in his adult life, that humanity's one fundamental flaw was emotion." This guy suppressed everything and looked at any situation with a severely logical eye, taking sympathy and worry out of the equation. Kill thousands of innocent, uninfected civilians? If that means solving the problem, then he was all for it. He didn't care the cost of his plan because he knew it would work. He was called 'emotionless,' but how true was his hard-earned title? Another quote from the book states, "Redeker's lifelong jihad against emotion was the only way to protect his sanity from the hatred and brutality he witnessed on a daily basis." That sounds more true than being an empty shell lined only with practicality.

I think about a few other characters that try to hide behind their actions or their strength, and it always turns out they are the most sensitive of human beings. Jeff Lindsay's Dexter Morgan, Amanda Hocking's Remy King... These are characters that have experienced the worst and do whatever they can to steel themselves to the reality of their memories... We can't keep from feeling ~ it's out of our control no matter how different we'd like it to be...

So, *emotion* ~ real or not real? Definitely real.... those who try to act as if they don't possess that quality which makes us all human are those that feel the most, hurt the worst, and fall the hardest.


~ Keely ~