Definition.

A thing that has always interested me is the attraction people have to other people's words. I am the world's biggest fan. We'll read a quote by someone, or song lyrics... and cling to it as something we really connect with. I'm fascinated by that need for someone else to point out some truth that we always knew but could never quite verbalize. I, myself, collect quotes by famous philosophers and poets. And where most people hear a good melody or beat in a song- I hear its lyrics. 

I think that some of this goes to a need that many of us have to live poetically. And what is poetry, exactly, but the need for purpose in our lives? We are deeply feeling individuals, and there is a strong drive to find meaning to those feelings. Anger, love, resentment, hurt, adoration, mysticism... we want a sense of purpose to tie them to. "Why do I feel this way?" "What should I do with this emotion?" and most importantly, "Is this normal?"

We want a sense of belonging, and the ability to define the storm of emotions inside us. I hold fast to a theory that not even the most seemingly detached person is emotionless. I think that they just have a different way of portraying their feelings than the rest of us. As a matter of fact, some of the the most "hard" people that I know are the ones who feel the most deeply, but simply keep it confined to themselves. Take a psychology class and then watch the actions of such an individual, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

But we all want it to mean something, and the poetry in a song lyric or a beautiful phrased sentence gives our confused minds some hope of manifesting that. To be totally honest, I'm not sure what my point is here. I guess I just think it's all sort of interesting. I think the whole idea of "finding oneself" is just such an interesting concept, not that this is news to anyone who reads this blog. Connecting to who you are at your core is probably the most "real" thing I think a person can do. You're with yourself for the entirety of your "being," and I think that being able to understand who you are is a wildly important thing. Also, then, isn't it interesting how we tend to rely on other people's definition of an emotion to understand our own?

Just a thought.

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