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Sunday, 4 January 2015

What I Would Design for Emotional People

If you are not an emotional person, you have no idea how frustrating it is to feel yourself start to cry. The tears start to well up, and then you know it's over. There's nothing you can do. You are essentially  just doomed to cry in front of everyone (not that it really matters anymore, since you've done it so many times). 

In short, it's not fun. Someone tells me about how their dog was put down, and I start to cry. I see someone in pain - even in a movie or tv show - and I start to cry. I connect to something someone says and I start to cry. I say goodbye to someone and I cry. For me, someone says something remotely offensive while I'm depressed and I start to explosively cry. My point is, it's really not difficult to turn me into a wreck. 

The world is not really created for emotional people. Empathy is something that is becoming less and less valued in favour of individualism and self-benefit. Crying is often viewed as a weakness, or something to be embarrassed about. 

Since I can't design an empathy machine to make emotions more acceptable, I would have to find another way to help. This is my idea:

I would build private semi-soundproof rooms in every public building specially delegated for emotional privacy. I would also have little crying huts on public streets. You could just excuse yourself, find a little crying room, and let it out. Wouldn't it be lovely if those were as numerous as washrooms? You're going to cry? No problem. Just go in there and do what you have to do.

Personally, I would love those. There would be no shame and no unwanted attention (as there is in a washroom, which is the current best public retreat for tears). You could just get away and give yourself time to feel better. 

If you don't have issues with feeling too much, you may not find this post very useful. However, I hope you can now rejoice in your luck at not having issues with feeling too much (or at least having the ability to control your emotional reactions). 

Have a good day (that hopefully does not involve a crying room)!

-Laura

Oh, and just a quick note: I completely forgot that since there are 31 days in December, I was now supposed to post on odd number days. That's the reason why we don't have a post yesterday... sorry about that!

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