You're Hurting My Feelings

 I was watching an episode of Dexter and one of the characters says to his workmates "You're hurting my feelings."

I know this is a strange context from which to bounce, but thoughts resonate with me in strange and mysterious ways.

He's a great character, with a twisted perspective and a wicked sense of humor. His workmates have been busting his balls about his personality, so he changes. He gets quiet. He gets angry. Finally they ask him what the hell is going on and he replies "You're hurting my feelings."

That should be the most powerful admission one human being can make to another. If someone says that to you, you should fall down shaking and crying. In shame and regret.

When you dig down below the three feet of bullshit we all burrow under to protect and hide ourselves, you get to feelings. How we feel about ourselves, how we feel about each other, how this makes you feel, how that makes you feel.

Feeling is everything. Feeling is life. Feeling can suffocate you. Feeling can destroy you.

How we feel about ourselves is probably the most important aspect of our character. That opinion impacts everything else. It impacts the face you show to the world, it impacts how you treat other people, it impacts how others treat you, it impacts how you deal with life.

The amazing and fragile thing about this is that for most of us, how others feel about us impacts how we feel about ourselves.

That's a tricky equation, baby.

Few of us are born tough. The rest of us get tough as we move along through life. This is toughness that is layered on, that develops in response to what we are dealing with. It is not one thing; there is no universal definition of toughness because there is no universal human.

Do people who are born tough have feelings? I don't know. Maybe natural toughness supercedes emotion.

The rest of us definitely have feelings and we have to deal with them.

Try not to hurt somebody's feelings.

You are damaging their soul.