Diversion #4- Emotion? Aberration.

This is a long and dense post so I'll offer the executive summary: I believe emotions are temporary aberrations from a normalized state of existence. Disturbingly, it seems like antonyms serve as our only basis for sensational description. Take this for example: if there were no sun and no lights, would darkness exist? Could you define the word "red" to a person blind since birth?

Ok, here's the backstory:

I get 13 television channels. Of these, there are 4 in Danish, 4 in Norwegian, 3 in Swedish and 2 in German. Decisions, decisions. So when The Thomas Crown Affair came on 2 nights ago (in English!) I was riveted. I know the directors and writers didn't bill the film as a thinker, that much was evident in their decision to cast ex-James Bond Pierce Brosnan in the title role. Yet some things about this particular take on the suave-thief-meets-sexy-detective genre kept it on my mind long after the credits rolled, and I finally identified them.

1. The Thomas Crown character is my picture of success. We have a lot in common: hedging our monetary prosperity on the finance industry, a love of fine art, and the desire to live impeccably well. And he has a lot of qualities I desire: unfailing confidence, thorough foresight, and the belief that the world works for him. He can also salsa dance, but that's just icing on the cake at this point. Basically, he lives the playboy lifestyle to which I aspire. That jealousy eats at me.

2. It is almost impossible for him to be happy. Consider this: I wake up in a soft bed in my heated apartment feeling, well, normal. In Africa, a slumdweller wakes up in the cot in his hut and goes outside to use the bathroom. He feels, well, normal. Is he any sadder than me? Am I any happier than him? I really doubt it. But what about this: Give him my apartment for a night, and he'd be happy. But let him stay in it for a year, and I'd be willing to bet that by night 364 he's become normalized to this new standard and feels the same as he did going to sleep in his hut. To me, emotions are felt like this:

It's nauseatingly mathematical but surprisingly relevant.

The X axis here is the state of emotional normalization, where, excluding any external event, a person's mood usually is. You're not happy, not sad, not excited, not unexcited. You just are.

The Y axis is the intensity of the emotion.

The frequency of the waves depends on the commonality of abnormal events.

The wavelength is the duration of time the emotion lasts.

In this graph, for example, maybe you won a raffle for a free lunch, but then you lost $20. Positive emotional deviation followed by a negative one.

But here's the kicker: say your spouse dies. Huge negative deviation from normality, big negative downturn experienced as "sadness." But you won't be sad indefinitely, you'll acquire a new state of normalization as your emotions either return to the x-axis or the x-axis adjusts downward permanently.

Thomas Crown's level of emotional normalization was so perversely skewed that only the most magnificent, unfathomable event (like the theft of a $100 million painting) would have generated a positive deviation. I like playing golf. I'm not good at it, but I don't get to do it often and it makes me happy. When Mr. Crown hit the golf course, he bet $100,000 on a single shot simply because, as he said, "It's a beautiful Saturday morning, gentlemen. What else are we going to do?" Give him a yacht, give a 12-year old girl a Jonas Brothers ticket. Who gets the bigger emotional spike? My money's on the girl.

I want to be Thomas Crown, and he will never be happy. That realization is why this film continues to haunt me.