Emotion & Me

Sometimes I wonder if it's all bullshit. Is anything we say real, does it really matter? Sometimes I feel like that sperm. Today is one of those days.
The moments when I have felt most alive, most captivated, most focused, have been moments of intense emotion. Emotion as some people may never experience. Emotion so strong and so deep and so demanding that nothing could divert my attention, even if I wanted it to. Therapy has taught me to feel but remove and move on. My medications prevent me from feeling so intensely. While that is wonderful because emotion doesn't daily interrupt my life anymore, it is also miserable. The thing I view as the biggest source of beauty in life has been diminished, and sometimes seems impossible to find.
Emotion is something we as humans often use to relate to one another. Stories mean something because they bring up an emotion or the thought of an emotion. That is what provides meaning. Without emotion, we would view things objectively. The death of a loved one wouldn't make us cry and the joke of a friend wouldn't make us laugh. We would merely take it in and comment on it, or say nothing at all. I cannot imagine a world devoid of emotion. That seems like hell to me.
I have a sick obsession with sadness, with feeling empty. It's a drug for me. It's miserable, yet it is how I know that I am real. If I didn't feel, what would I be? A robot. An object. A thing.
I was discussing masturbation with some friends the other day and we were talking about why boyfriends and girlfriends and significant others will always exist. There is an emotional connection that we as humans feel with others that we will never feel with objects. At least most of us. And while we may want to deny the existence of these emotions, we cannot. They are such a large part of our being; they are what makes us whole.
Something I will always struggle to grasp is compartmentalization. Therapist after therapist has recommended this skill. While I value its importance and life-saving capabilities, I also hate it with every ounce of my being. If I'm feeling something, why can I not simply feel it? Why must I push it away to deal with something else? How is that natural?
I believe we as humans create meaning in our own lives. Much of it is taught or observed. We teach our kids that an A is good and a hug means someone cares about you. But how do you teach emotion? Is it really taught? I believe it is innate. It is there. To a certain extent, it can be taught or molded by others. Watching the way my mom reacted to tears molded how I felt sadness and how I felt about feeling sadness. But she didn't teach me how to be sad. I just felt it.