Ben Greenman on the continuity of emotions within the individual

Wow. I read a piece by this guy Ben Greenman in the New Yorker when I was down in the Secret City, and I thought it was kinda humorous definitely climbing into the amber on the JQR Stimuli Scale, and then I saw him reading (or went to see him reading, I was there and he was too, listening and reading, respectively, I and him) and wasn’t impressed further. So his book went back down to Stimuli Level Beige or wherever one color-codes those books that you might be excited to encounter in the dentist’s office at the Secret City, but here in the home archipelago, with so many other book titles and other diversions to choose from, you let lie unfeathered on the table.

 This one, from the fictionaut blog, however, is smart and on the money, in my opinion. And so I quote Mr. Greenman:

Fifteen years ago, when you sent me a letter, I received it three days later, and it was my responsibility to believe that the emotions you represented in that letter were still in fact valid. If you wrote ‘I’m angry at you,’ I had to believe that you were still in some sense angry, and you had to believe it, too, or else you came apart at your own seams. Emotions and states of mind persisted, which was healthy for us all, because the alternative is too entropic. Now updates can be issued hourly, or even more minutely than that, and these ongoing amendments to the self cannot help but erode or erase broader outlines. Now that individuals can announce that they are angry and immediately announce that they are no longer angry, what is anger, and what are individuals?