Why Is Everyone So Emotionally Detached? - David Brooks

There's a lot of people in the world who find something, I think, attractive about being stoic, or aloof, or rational, or cynical. Emotions don't really get much room or honor.

Yeah, I used to be that guy. (laughs) Uh, and so I'm gonna tell you a quick story. I love baseball, and I've been to a th- thousand baseball games, and I've never caught a foul ball. So about 10 years ago, I'm at Camden Yards, uh, with my son, and the batter loses control of the bat, it flies into the air, lands in my lap in the stands. So I've got a bat, and getting a bat is a thousand times better than getting a ball. And so any normal human being is holding th- his trophy up in the air, high-fiving everybody, hugging, getting on the jumbotron. I put the bat at my feet and stare straight ahead, like I have the emotional reaction of the turtle.

(laughs)

(laughs) And I, I look back on that guy and I think, "Show a little joy." And I, I was, uh, through the early part of my life, even w- when I was four, my nursery school teacher apparently told my parents, "David doesn't really play with the other kids. He just watches them," which I guess is good for a career in journalism, but it's just an emotionally detached way of living, and I found it, um, that I was a s- I had emotions, but they were, I, I was a little str- they were strangers to me, and there was certainly no highway between my heart and my mouth, so I couldn't express them. Uh, and I just found it a cold, uh, lonely, uh, and detached way of living, uh, and so, uh, I've set out on a journey for 10 years to become a, a little more emotionally vulnerable, a little more emotionally available, and a little less of a complete emotional idiot.

What do you think compels people to not feel feelings?

I think, A, uh, grew up in a certain culture where feel- feelings are not acceptable, especially if they're guys. Two, fear. Feelings are sort of hard to control. Fear of vulnerability, uh, desire for mastery. Uh, if you can reduce the world to systems and logical systems, then it's a world you can control. And people are just afraid of intimacy. I mean, the thing we want most in the world is to be seen in our fullness. The thing we fear most in the world is to be seen in our fullness, and so it's terrifying to open yourself up, uh, to people, and I've found moments of real, you know, scariness 'cause, you know, who knows how much to reveal? Who knows... It's scary to face yourself, but, you know, over the years, I've become better at it, I think, and I, I've come to just totally appreciate this way of life. I was at a conference about two years ago in Nantucket, and, um, we're at some venue, and the speaker passes out these sheets of paper, uh, and on each sheet of paper is a s- lyrics to a love song, and the speaker tells us, "Find a stranger, stare into their eyes, and sing the love song into their eyes." And if you had asked me to do that 10 years ago, I would have spontaneously combusted, but, uh, but I did it, and I, uh, you, um, I wouldn't wanna do that every day, but, um, I'm glad to be a little more loose (laughs) than I used to be.