Everything You Didn't Want To Know About Emotion Suppression :(

Based on Philip K Dicks seminal novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Hollywood's interpretation with Blade Runner 2049 has some very interesting points of its own to make.

***the link for this scene is explicit viewer discretion advised***

Specifically about our relationships with our emotions, our profession, and what it means to be human. In the film's seminal scene, Ryan Gosling's character undergoes a test where the interviewer asks a series of aggressive questions that are intended to elicit an emotional response.

It's only through experiencing the events of the film that the protagonist is able to properly fail the test, with a resounding "God Dammit!!!" Essentially this is the exact thing we're told not to do as working professionals.

We are told to pass the test that identifies us as human facsimiles every time we give a presentation at the annual stakeholder event, interview for a promising new job position, or undergo an HR review.

Every single fiber in your human body is telling you to act in line with your emotions, but in order to succeed, make money, support your family, and live a happy capitalist lifestyle you need to act the part of an android.

In Nazim Ali's?Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment, he provides clear definitions of the effects of work stress on both your Physiology and Psychology which include anxiety, abdominal pain, fatigue, migraines, changes in eating and sleeping habits, and a laundry list of other symptoms. All of which can lead an individual towards pharmaceutical consumption.

While the example he provides is when you are being loaded down with work by your superiors, I would like to argue that employees are generally acceptive of the work responsibilities of their profession. It is however the lack of adequate venues for them to express their feelings towards this negative stimulus that causes all of the symptoms laid out above.

He also states that an employee's commitment to an organization is pivotal to its success, but that it's generally acceptable in the 21st century for the organization to have zero commitment to its employees.

If we take the pop culture example I provided and insert it in Ali's scenario, if you were to respond in a vocal and negative manner to your superior providing you with an excess of work to your job description you would be immediately and forcibly "retired." Killed, laid off, your job no longer exists as you knew it, your life is no longer the same, and you will find yourself starting from square one.

How is an employee supposed to feel secure in an environment where they can not feel emotion, how can they not immediately seek therapeutic, or pharmaceutical remedies to their mounting work stress? How are these employees meant to live as healthy and functional human beings within the boundaries and confines of their workplace?

The answer is they're not!

That's everything you don't want to know about emotion suppression :(