OMG, is it Serious, Maybe

Big data and the use by marketing (or spin if you count politics) is fudging the line of concern and serious.  From healthcare,  national security and the deodorant we use, high emotion is now attached and would have you believe something is wrong with you or your environment.

Is there a difference between passion and emotion?

I have met passionate people, they demonstrate their love of the topic by the wisdom and knowledge and seek to get the word out through facts and understanding.  They usually speak to the difficulty of creating a sustainable message within the social paradigm, but their diligence is unwavering.

I have also met emotional people and this seems to be a growing methodology of the sustainable message.  They differ from passion as wisdom is not a prerequisite nor is depth of understanding.  The important aspect is the infestation of your emotional balance through mccabe stories or outcomes if you don't listen and head.

I don't believe the goals of either communication style is subversive in nature and are concerning real issues.  I do believe one is cancelling the other out.  Passionate people are now thrown into the same bus as the emotional carny presentation.  If we are not there yet, we are parallel parked next to it.

Passionate people have a way of speaking that informs and changes our perspective or adds to our viewpoint.  We can think for ourselves.  Emotional folks excite our limbic system and we get carried away to a place we eventually wake up and try and understand how we got there.  Nothing makes sense.

Are you discounting messages where emotions are integrated to the point you have to be as mad, sad or anxious as what the writer, speaker or host is presenting?

I can remember in my youth, jurassic period, you would here crosswords, emotional tones and see angry/frustrated people.  Folks would come to their aid as they new something “serious” was afoot.  Today no one goes to aid anyone because the emotional outburst involved their order of a large fry and they received a small.

Anecdotally this is a little humorous.  The spread of this concept though is not just left at the door of the ridiculous, but is extending into our healthcare, legal system and our government to name a few places it shouldn't reside.

My mother-in-law checked into the hospital because she was experiencing some mental incapacitation.  The emergency room doctor began spouting off all the diseases and conditions and began an emotional diatribe.  He had been in their for 3 minutes.  24 hours later the general practitioner shows up and figured out she took the evening pills in the morning.

A serious trial these days is more a broadway production manipulating the jury's emotional perspective than it is seeking justice or truth.  The sound bites of a political campaign, regardless of side, is another whole venue of drama, in lieu of substance.

I can't speak for the whole of the population but i am a little numb with the emotional vigor always attached to issues.  I no longer assume something is “serious” because someone has attached a heap of emotions on top.  The boy that cried wolf comes to mind.

I would be interested in your thoughts of emotions and their manipulation to make a point that changes your behaviour.