• 1. Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum.
• 2. Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

I wouldn’t say that emotional stability is an apt descriptor of my personality. I feel like I’m always on the precipice of some sort of breakdown, that I am a camel’s back about to be broken by the last straw. I’ve spent a lot of time being ashamed about this aspect of myself, that I feel too much, too much of the time. People tell me I love too hard, I cry too much and that I laugh too loud. But from what I’ve seen in myself and in others, I think that being bound to placidity so that your reactions to life are digestible to the people around you, is a more uncomfortable jail cell than being labelled “unstable” or “overemotional”.

I think that society has a very bad habit of making us all smaller. Women, particularly, are taught that certain reactions and behaviours are polite and correct from childhood, and when we grow up, we grow into these adults that hide behind suits and ties, adhering to dress codes and codes of behaviour out of the fear that our individuality will set us apart – and not in a good way. Modern life is built to stifle passion. But passion drives every aspect of the human spirit. Passion is the root of love. Passion is the root of anger. That’s why both are coded red, that’s why both feel like fire when done right. Even sadness; that’s just a lack of passion, the fire quenched and replaced with cool blue. It makes me wonder how we accepted that this is what life is, how passion having no place in modern life leads to the conclusion that the human spirit is simply incompatible with the way we live today.

The worst part is that the most likely explanation for our willingness to accept a sedated life stems from fear – a fear that then spreads like a contagion when we perpetuate it and spread it to others. There’s a great stigma in society for people who are ‘too happy’, ‘too angry’, ‘too loving’. We like to cut down tall poppies when we see they’re growing taller than us. So we accept sedation, lest we are considered childish, violent or clingy. We tamp down the flames of passion, hoping that the cooling coals will be enough to warm us through the night of an – objectively – cold life. We accept mediocre jobs, tell high school graduates to aim for ‘realistic’ careers. To have a Plan B.

But for a moment, think about what could happen if we stoked the flames of our personal fires instead. It would be foolish to posit that anyone suffers from being happier. There are, one hundred percent, injustices taking place geopolitically and socioeconomically that deserve our focused, burning and intense anger. And just imagine for a second; how much the world would improve if we were collectively, 1% more loving towards one another. Now think about how your life would be if you really “went for it”. How different would your days be if you were brave enough, back then, to put everything into Plan A? Would you be more in love with your life than you are now? Would you be able to bounce out of bed for once, rather than starting your days with that quiet voice of discontentment that you never can shake – but it’s okay, because the sound of your alarm clock that makes sure you’re on time for that soulless 9-to-5 job you work always drowns it out?

What if you didn’t listen, when they all said to pick a life without passion?

It's an idealistic thing to think that unleashing all of our emotions and passions all of the time is a beneficial thing, that it would somehow improve the state of affairs or that it’s always going to be appropriate. But I beg of you, if you do this – intentionally or not – try not to tamp down the flames of a child’s burning ambition to become a famous singer. When someone is angry, listen first, then assign their outburst as irrational if, and only if it truly is. Most of all, if your lover cries in front of you, that it’s because they find enough comfort in you to expose their red, raw, bleeding heart. Don’t squander that trust by telling them that it’s unsightly. That it’s too much. Ask yourself, instead, if you’re not doing enough. Thank them for their trust in you. Catch their tears so that they don’t drown fire that drives their love for you; God forbid any kind of relationship without passion, you have enough roommates in your life.

Take their blue, and turn it into red. Always, always, choose to turn it into red; because any shade of red is far better than a palatable blue.