Man, I used to really struggle with understanding some types of feelings. You know the ones I’m talking about, right? Those quick, sharp opinions, the blunt observations, the sudden bursts of “this is how it is” kind of talk. I always sort of mentally labeled them “Knight of Swords feelings” – super direct, to the point, maybe a little aggressive, and, to me, often felt a bit… shallow. Like, was there really any deep thought or emotion behind that quick jab? I honestly believed most of the time, it was just surface-level stuff, just reactive noise.
I remember one time, it really hit home for me, in a bad way. I was pouring my heart into this passion project, something I really believed in. And then, out of nowhere, an old buddy of mine, someone I trusted, just blurted out a really harsh, critical comment about it. It felt like a punch to the gut. So direct, so cutting. My initial reaction was pure dismissal. “Wow,” I thought, “that’s just thoughtless, shallow criticism. He clearly doesn’t get it, doesn’t care enough to dig deeper.” For weeks, I just mentally wrote him off. I figured he lacked the capacity for any kind of deep, nuanced understanding of what I was doing. It stung, and I built a wall around that whole interaction.
But here’s the thing about old friends, right? You can’t just erase them easily. Even though I tried to put it behind me, his comment, that specific blunt statement, it just kept nagging at me. It wasn’t like him to be just shallow. He was usually a pretty thoughtful guy, even if he had a rough edge. I found myself replaying his exact words in my head, over and over, trying to remember his tone, the look on his face. And as I did, bits and pieces of other conversations started to pop up in my memory. Little worries he’d casually mentioned about my project’s direction months earlier, things I’d completely brushed off at the time because they weren’t direct enough. Back then, I’d wanted solid, actionable feedback, and his vague concerns didn’t fit the bill. Now, they felt like clues.
Starting to Really Dig In
That’s when I decided I had to really look at it, not just dismiss it. I sat down, almost forced myself, to map out what his real concerns might have been. Was it truly about my project itself, or was he maybe projecting his own fears about stability onto my risky venture? Or maybe even worries about us drifting apart if our paths diverged too much? I started asking myself, seriously, “What’s underneath that sharp, quick comment? What unsaid thing might it be carrying?” I pulled apart my own assumptions too, trying to see where I might have been quick to judge him. I also started paying closer attention to other situations where people seemed blunt or quick to jump to conclusions. I tried to train myself to stop just hearing the immediate words, and to really strain to hear the why behind them, the unspoken motivations.
And then it hit me, like a ton of bricks. Those “Knight of Swords feelings” – that quick, direct, sometimes almost confrontational energy – they weren’t shallow at all. Far from it. What I started to see was that they were often expressions of deep-seated fears. Or sometimes, they were born from intense frustration, maybe even a sense of helplessness when softer, indirect approaches hadn’t worked. My buddy wasn’t being shallow; he was genuinely worried for me, and when his earlier, gentler hints had gone unnoticed, he finally just snapped with a direct statement. It was his last resort, born out of a profound concern. The directness, the sharpness, it wasn’t an absence of deeper emotions; it was often a sign of just how deeply those emotions were running.
This whole experience changed how I dealt with my own quick, reactive feelings too. When I felt that familiar urge to just blurt out a sharp opinion or a cutting observation, I started pausing. I made myself ask, “What’s really making me feel this way right now? Am I worried about something? Am I feeling frustrated by a lack of progress? Am I trying to protect myself or someone else?” It made me a lot more introspective, a lot more aware of the currents beneath my own surface. And it totally changed how I listened to others. Instead of immediately putting up my guard against a blunt comment, I tried to open myself up to hear the unspoken message it might be desperately trying to carry.
It’s like looking at a fast-moving river. On the surface, it might look shallow and chaotic. But if you really pay attention, if you know how to read the ripples and the currents, you realize there are some incredibly deep pools and powerful flows underneath, shaping everything. Those quick, sharp feelings? Yeah, they can absolutely be incredibly deep. You just gotta learn how to see past the immediate splash, how to dive in, or at least how to read the surface for what’s truly happening down below.
