As life progresses, one of the factors that gets increasingly present in our daily lives is ED (Emotional depth… I know, you laughed – maybe twice, depending on which headlines you’ve been reading). I do not know if Emotional Depth is a real term, yet it seems to describe a feeling I have.
As I started to write this post, I immediately remembered this tweet from @kshashi where he talks about what unleashes the wrath of toddlers. “Breaking roti in pieces when he wants it full” stuck with me. Maybe all of us remember a moment from our childhood when we cried over something that now seems either silly or common.
Last week, my 6 yo nephew in Bangalore cried and created a bit of a ruckus (only a bit, he is daring for the most part) when he saw his parents playing a game of Catan with some friends when he returned from his class. His demand was that they need to play two games of Catan with him on the same day! My bhabhi explained to him on the lines of… “seeing your family happy and having a good time should make you happy instead of thinking that you lost something…”
From broken roti pieces to playing a game of Catan, what becomes a crisis for us changes as we grow? I remember crying after coming back from school because my cousins who were visiting us for the past few days had left for the train station before I got back. Nobody told me they are leaving, and maybe for good reason 🙂
What I considered drama or as I often call it adventure during my teenage years versus what it looked like in my 20s and what it now looks like in my 30s is wildly different. During my teenage years it would probably be easy to upset me and make me lose sleep over something small and insignificant. In my 20s, the same things would probably upset me, but I would see added anxiety from running a startup with all my inexperience. And as one grows, the number of open threads, unresolved issues, situations where one is helpless, family drama… it all compounds. The number of people we know, the number of things we do and the number of responsibilities on our shoulders… all add up. Yet, I think this video that shows our reaction to problems across generations (70s kid vs 80s kid vs 90s kid…), seems to apply to me with all of these reactions being a part of me.
Just that the video plays in reverse now. My reactions to inevitable worldly issues aren’t as wild anymore. Maybe it’s just the numbness from seeing so many things hit at once that makes it easier. A higher pain tolerance? Or maybe it’s the calmness that comes with greater emotional depth.