Against the Flow, Effort into Emotion

Against the Flow, Effort into Emotion

Following the natural flow of energy, our connections empower our interactions. Meaning our emotions and connections are what motivates our efforts to change the world. When we go against the natural flow of energy and try to turn effort into emotion we cause conflict and negative change, we are treating others like they are part of the world that we need to change, ignoring their motivations or value. Trying to physically force emotion is seen as oppressive, overbearing or even aggressive. Keep in mind that we are not including thought, but going straight to social. We can think of these people as the class clowns, the jocks, the people who are popular for what they are instead of who they are. The best example of this are celebrities. Celebrities are in our lives every day, we see them on the screen, they work to connect with us in any way they can, but when it comes down to it they have no real connection with us while many approach celebrities and physically try to reinforce that connection.

Bad Connections From Effort

When we use effort to connect, physically try to create an emotional tie to someone, we are treating the other side of the connection like a part of the world we need to change. In my early teens I would use physical acts to impress people. I would challenge them to races, jump from high places without hurting myself, climb impossible objects or leap over tall objects. In my mind, impressing people gave them a reason to want me around, giving them incentive to connect to me. The crowds would gather and watch my antics but when the show was over everyone drifted away. When I tried to talk to these people later on, they would ask me to perform but I wanted to connect so I simply said “I don’t perform on demand”, they would give me a critical look and walk away.

Connecting with effort creates an overbearing connection that is all about simply getting what one side wants, creating an uncomfortable situation. To my audiences I was simply entertainment and when I refused to perform they cut the connection without any understanding, no shared motivations to bring me into their community, no empathy driving them to care.

A connection built of effort will always be fragile power imbalance, we will always be worried about when it will fail, opening us up to being taken advantage of. Even if you fuel a connection with effort, hoping that emotion will follow, you will never know if the emotion is real until you stop putting in the effort that the connection either lasts or fails.