The Emotional Valley of Life

Real life is generally lived within a narrow range of emotions.

Imagine a well worn but narrow path that is surrounded on both sides by two steep mountain slopes - that's the typical emotional valley of life.

Most people limit their emotional expressions to what could be described as 'neutrally restrained' or the equivalent of always plodding along that narrow path.

Think about how people within a corporate culture express themselves across their day to day interactions and you should have a pretty clear picture of what I mean.

On the flip side, think of all the people you know, and then think of everyone you've ever had bawl their eyes out to you or flip out or scream and run away from things or tell you off.

I can pretty confidently assert that the number of grown adults (or even kids past a certain age) that have acted like that around you or to you probably represent an extreme minority.

While this is in no way revelatory - I mean it's as mundane as mundane gets - it's interesting, at least to me.

It's interesting mainly because I tend to feel that the narrow emotional valley is stronger in the real world versus the digital world, and then within the digital world the compulsion to walk along that narrow path is stronger with digital videos or pictures than in writing.

Perhaps it's that comparatively wider emotional valley that exists in the digital world that makes it so very compelling to spend more and more time online for so many.

Or perhaps the digital world is simply a better place for people to practice a wider range of emotional expression so that they can engage in wider, more varied expressions in the real world.