When I was younger, I used to think crying was stupid. Like it's a sign of weakness. Why must cry, so weak.

I still think crying is sometimes quite loser.

But, I've come to realise crying is cathartic and is quite therapeutic. Especially when you cry till you're so tired then you just wanna sleep lol.

Feelings can be so... Erratic. So I say, every time I feel happy I should revel in it.

At the same time, I think bad feelings should be embraced as well. People say that we should disregard negative feelings such as anger, jealousy and sadness.

But, I actually think that feelings make us truly human. To not fully embrace these feelings would mean that you're just being ignorant about your own thoughts and feelings. Feelings are natural and I think people shouldn't feel ashamed about how they feel. We should allow ourselves to be angry at things and sad at others. It's normal for humans to feel that way. We're really vulnerable actually.

And in society, we're conditioned to act in certain ways.

If we're talking about gender, I'm sure guys can be just as emotional as girls. But as guys, they're supposed to be manly and not express feelings like sadness. So crying would be deemed... Unmanly. And for girls, well we're expected to be more understanding and sympathetic because we're supposedly more attuned to our own feelings. But if I give an example of homosexuals, like gays, they're biologically male but gays are known to be more expressive of their feelings right? How is that so? Aren't they biologically born to have male instincts to be less expressive? So actually, gays and men aren't any different and men should also have the "capacity" to express feelings. It's just... Societally they're not supposed to. You could argue that gays are different coz mentally they're "girls". But then again, that's the societal mindset of thinking if you get what I mean.  It's merely a mindset. Biologically, they're born the same way as all guys. So if you think about it, biologically males and females are just as emotional. It's just how we're expected to act differently in society.

If we look at culture,

I think Singaporeans are known to be one of the least expressive people in the world. In the exact words I remember it to be "most emotionless nation". No kidding, I read it off some survey. That's quite sad lah, means that whatever we feel... We just don't express. I guess it's sorta Asian to do so. Like if we are happy we don't exactly go around expressing our joy. Sadness, we bottle it all up inside. Anger too. We just never say or talk about it. I don't really know why actually, we're just programmed culturally. And I think growing up in a society like that, I'm sorta like that too? Going to New Zealand taught me how different us Asians and angmohs express feelings.

So I think this affects a lot of aspects of the Arts. Ever wondered why angmohs are SO good at singing and dancing? I've always thought that their ability to express their feelings in their singing and dancing is the reason why. If you think about it, the Arts require a lot of emotions put into it. When you sing, you cannot merely sing the lyrics without feeling what you sing. Lyrics are like poems that need to be sung with emotions and feelings otherwise it's merely karaoke.

And dance. You cannot dance without feeling whatever you're dancing for. How do you move to the rhythm and melody? When you look at Asian dancers, Asians ALWAYS get the technicality right. 10 upon 10 for flexibility and right angles. But artistically, a person has to be good at expressing emotions. It's like the movie Black Swan. Natalie Portman's character was SO good at technicality and was hitting all the right notes and moves. Yet, her coach was always pushing her to feel more like the Black Swan and express her deepest darkest emotions, not just be robotically acting like she was. He even compared her to Mila Kunis' character who was to the contrary. In the end, when Natalie Portman finally DID express all her emotions into her dance, she nailed it. She nailed her performance. But she died lah in the end lol. But you get my point. For everything, it's not only discipline that you need, but the ability to connect with your emotions and be able to express it.

So sometimes, I wish I could be more honest about my feelings. Both with myself and others. Sometimes I feel upset with myself for even being sad coz I'd chide myself for being sad over small menial things. Like getting a B+ for a grade when I was expecting an A (nabeh). And if people ask me if I'm sad, I usually try to mask it and say no I'm not. But actually, deep down lol LYING LOR. Actually I'd even get angry with people asking if I'm sad HAHA. So now I'll try not to be too harsh on myself. Sad is sad. Angry is angry. I cannot run away from my feelings. They're what makes me human.

Yeap, that's my take on feelings. We're living in a "liberal" society yet we don't have the liberty to live the way we want sometimes. Ah well, life goes on you see guys, life is still meaningful don't commit suicide after my post ah.