7 58 pm pdt [ moody me ]
For those of you who don't know, I manage a "ring" of
online journals called On
Display. Each member writes one entry a month on a given topic. This month, someone
suggested "moods" and we were all hopping along selecting our individual
moods when someone asked if they could write on "embarrassment" and then
someone else asked is they could write on "anticipating". Of course both
were fine with me, but the questions sparked the query in my mind of what
the difference is between mood, feeling, and emotion.
I puzzled it out in e-mail to the group. You can be in
a playful mood, but you probably wouldn't say playfulness is an emotion.
You couldn't say you were in a terrified mood [that would be horrible!]
but you could feel terrified (a feeling, and terror is the emotion).
Then I began to understand that when one says what kind
of mood one is in, they aren't describing their emotions, they are
describing the type of mood.
That was when I began wondering why we always describe
our moods generically and/or vaguely. Commonly, we say one is in a good
mood, bad mood, strange mood, dark mood. Why is mood so elusive? Why
can't we communicate precision of mood?
At this point, someone pointed out that the description
of "moody" is never a good thing. I began pondering that fact. Why
should that be true? [And I do believe it is.]
I mostly exist on the highest highs or deep down lows.
I am never in the middle. I have a few times wondered if I'm bipolar [but
I don't really think so]. My
brother is more or less the exact opposite of me. He is always in the
middle. He is always "fine". He is like a cork floating down a river; he
just takes what happens and keeps on going.
Why should a lack of highs and lows be preferred? I
would take my ups and downs any day over my brother's nonchalance. He's
never gasped that a pasta diner is orgasmic. He's never sung to the
trees or the sky. He's content while I'm ecstatic of depressed. Which
would you choose? Do you value how you are?