Beneath the Silver Moon

      Over the course of my vacation to California, I have found myself experiencing a lot of different emotions. Not only have I had to come to grips with a few uncomfortable things, my emotions have helped me realize so much about myself. Emotion is so unpredictable, and although I feel the need to control my outward identity, my inward identity has been rocked out of control. If I lived my life as a river, up until this point I would have been damed up into a lake. Now that the dam has burst, I'm learning to direct my river of emotions to a place where I am able to control it again.

      Now this realization has lead me to another point: How much should I control my emotions? Emotion can be a hassle, and I for one have had to deal with some annoying feelings as a result. But on the other hand, emotion is what makes life interesting. Inspiration in many forms is influenced by our feelings. A band I've been listening to lately plays a song called "Tin Man", and it talks about missing the feeling of feeling, likening a lack of heart to the tin woodsman in the Wizard of Oz. The song points out how awful it would be to lose emotional reactions such happiness and joy. In this line of thought, could I ever control my emotions to a point where they weren't responsive anymore? That would be a disaster, life would lose its flavor. So my question is now: What balance of emotion will keep my life interesting, yet still manageable?