I am one of those people who are out of touch with their emotions. I tend to treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives - a long-distance call once or twice or year is more than enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come to stay.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a struggle with emotional connection, suggesting that some people may avoid deep emotional engagement to prevent their feelings from becoming overwhelming.
Molly Ivins metaphorically describes her relationship with her emotions, equating them to unpleasant relatives whom she prefers to keep at a distance. This analogy illustrates the fear of being overwhelmed by one's emotions, indicating a preference for emotional detachment over vulnerability and the potential for emotional chaos that accompanies deeper feelings.
In practice
During a discussion on mental health, this quote can illustrate the struggle many have in dealing with their emotions.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter.
This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.
I don't want to be your other half. I believe that one and one make two.
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.
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