Have my Emotions Taken a Back Seat?

Oscar Wilde once said, “I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

How well said.

As a lass while I was growing up, I figured emotions to be a part of the self. And, coming from an educational background, we were taught to hold an opinion on almost everything. I still remember how we were taught to change our tonality while we pronounced a few words. For example, if there was an exclamatory mark after a particular sentence, then the pronunciation would be surprising. In case of an interrogatory sentence, the expressions would be interrogatory.

Emotions used to go hand in hand with the pronunciations. I still remember how much I had wept when Simon Bolivar had died  while reading about him in history. Likewise, I used to feel so lucky to have read the creations of John Keats, William Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the like.

Now, I feel such circumstances all around me have kind of inculcated a lot of machine-like qualities in me. These days I feel no different than a stoic. It feels that these days nothing seems to excite me anymore.

No more happiness while I discover there’s chicken for dinner, or when it's raining outside. Everything feels so very basic. So very mundane. It feels that nothing makes sense anymore.

But why?

I was never like this, my peers tell me that I have been extra sensitive about almost everything, even the colour of the doormat

I have even started to fake expressions now. Earlier, when I didn’t find a particular joke funny, I used to protest stating that I didn’t find it very funny. It seems that all of that has come to a standstill… 

Thinking  more about this, on weekends, I often take a tour around the sea, in the hope of getting some of my answers.

I asked, ‘Dear Sea, why do you think that I don’t feel jovial anymore? Why have I turned into a stoic?’

I waited patiently for a revert  but got none.

Flabbergasted, I looked around to find people either engrossed in PDA or immersed into their phones clicking selfies.

Was the sea offended with us, and heart-broken that we have been neglecting her ever since?

Was it trying to say something, while I ignored it all this while?

Likewise, have I been neglecting myself, my thoughts and even my emotions all this while? Did I actually stop talking to them?

Were they trying to say something to me?

Is this why  my beloved emotions have taken a backseat?