Getting rid of excess emotional baggage is the crusade I am on. It is not usually a problem. In general, the substance to be rid of is that, which is deemed, by myself, as "bad". I try hard to avoid any swirling grey areas and I rely heavily on intuition when it comes to defining which is good and which is bad. In essence, I don't usually have any difficulty discerning which is which, though good sometimes metamorphoses into bad and vice versa.
I do keep hold of a varying expanse of emotion but also have a deep-seated need to dispense with the superfluity. Although, strangely, I sometimes like to let bad elements remain, for a while at least, as if to test my strength against them. An excellent example is the pain of love and loss.
Love itself can be quite agonising, an exquisite ache, and even so the loss. I don't like to dwell in anything like self-pity but sometimes holding the bad, briefly, makes me feel quite Herculean. I've never considered myself to be meek or pathetic, just slightly perverse. I am sure I am not alone. This sounds quite masochistic I know and, with a grin, I'd have to acquiesce.
I feel I am quite sybaritic in my approach to life. I loathe people who search out the bad things and only feel good when they are low enough to only feel happy when something or someone is hurting them. I want the good things in life; I want happiness and sunshine. I want to be loved. I want success and contentment. I want to be praised and proud. I'm narcissistic enough to sometimes laughingly crave god-like adoration and even have an ego to support it.
My chosen method of purgation is writing. Which I do with gusto, until, that is, I get the block, then I find out just how pernicious things can become. I experience feelings akin to being swamped and suffocated. I develop masses of agitation and restlessness and basically feel lost. It's like an integral part of me is missing, almost as if a limb has been cut off. My hedonism drifts away from me, leaving me deflated and flattened. I retreat into myself and start down a road of devastating self-analysis. Time seems to stand still. My major artery for expression is blocked and my repressed emotions weigh heavy on my shoulders and I buckle under the strain of it all. Burdensome.
Of course I've given thought to the fact that maybe having this rather painful and rather cutting "block" every now and then is what maintains my literal stamina, maybe having these droughts of inspiration help in some way. A sabbatical to slumber my imagination, a literary hibernation to recoup my writing strength. And of course this brings me full circle in my speculation in discerning and valuing good and bad and perhaps I should conclude that maybe the "block", in itself, is another so-called "bad" that I should indeed be glad of.