This ended up being a free ramble... it started out trying to sort out my definition of numb, but ended up being a regurgitation of my feelings about... feelings in a slightly sterile clinical way. So it lacks feeling. Ironic ha ha. Also halfway through this, I wondered if as I write my statements, though they may be read as statements, really are just questions, in that writing them produces a need to test them to reason and feelings. You could add I feel like or I think to the beginning of any sentence in this thing and probably be a little closer to what is coming out of me and what I'm experiencing as I write. Part of it is merely reaffirming the voice of my testimony for myself, though you can read it too so I thought I'd send (post) it.
On the other hand you have the evil purpose of numbness in the term "past feeling" which I interpret more as a suspension of moral judgment through conditioned denial of the Holy Ghost which disconnects from God. A lack of empathy for others which disconnects from them as real people and allows them to be used and harmed. And a lack of personal feelings of pain or joy or whatever is appropriate like a nervous system breakdown would keep you from feeling pain touching a hot stove, thus preventing you from the motivation to move it, while the heat continues to burn and damage your skin. The damage is real, but the mind is tricked into believing it is not because it can no longer receive the communication to feel it. And this is evil, because one has no choice in the matter where as in the case of emotions we are only tempted (in the sense of suggestion not necessarily sin) to feel in different directions and have relative control (though sometimes it is a push against a seemingly immovable wall). At least we have the possibility of choice to push and the gift of grace when we cannot push any harder, which chasm is massive. Numbing sometimes comes at the price of being burned enough to believe there is no choice in response or that the power necessary to choose one choice is overshadowed by the doubt inspired by previous experience in similar situations (learned helplessness, which term is often used in derision and condemnation of the learner without regard to the power of the teacher and learning environment from which such a state results). The inverse of this would be learned power and the Victor Frankl type stuff which I haven't read and vaguely remember concepts mentioned.
Another thought is that emotions are subjective and contextual and complexly intertwined with our internal system of symbols. Our emotions stem from reactions to rules we have learned, developed, created, and adopted. I can not fathom the algorithm involved between seeing a nostalgic symbol and its emotional response. And those strong reactions are the easy ones. There are complicated processes going on to interpret slightly mundane symbols. We try to predict responses, but can only illicit the most directly observable connections between stimuli and responses in others. An act of service may inspire gratitude, feelings of worth and connection in one person and that same act may foster feelings of bitterness, envy, and shame in another person with different viewpoints and experiences. When we say things resonate with us, it is because a connection is being fused or exercised and digging deeper grooves to things we value. To things we believe. There is a temporal and spiritual version of this and many times they overlap. If they always overlapped (the resonance of spiritual principles with our spirits and the resonance of ideas with personal schemas about the world) spiritual growth would never be painful, because we would only accept truth and good and light.
That is another reason Christ was perfect and was perfected and grew in wisdom and stature and favor of god and man. We try to walk close to this path in that we try to cling to light and grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day. We attach anchors that may leave us in places we should not be comfortable because of rules we have forgotten the creation of and which have outlived their purpose. Strange example would be perhaps God doesn't want me to be good at my job now, because he doesn't want me to stay there. I used to joke that God isn't going to answer my prayers asking for the band to succeed, because he probably wants me to do something else. But who am I to assume the will of One who knows all? Every single nuance and complex algorithm inside each brain, and beyond that, every interconnected system of molecules atoms, weather patterns, geological formations, social forces, cosmic events, etc. A complete comprehension of every known area of study and things never supposed and even more valuable the complete comprehension of their integration as a whole. With power over them. Satan would have us stop at some knowledge, but God wishes to endow knowledge over all things and appoint power over these things - the elements. But we don't have that knowledge yet and so like infants make sometimes outlandish predictions and statements about the world, so do we make statements about things we feel or cannot know for certain without spiritual insight. In this context, the value of Christ's ability to know the hearts of the people cannot be overestimated, since we are individually worth more than sparrows to Him and to all that is important in our eternal influence.
Part of life could be a test to see to what extent we overlap with Christ in our resonance with truth. And loving him more than comfort jeopardized by walking through pain of reframing our mental positions, is one thing the gods referred to when talking about proving us herewith.
My ideals often lack sufficient resolve. That is a recurring flaw out of which flow multitudes of errors. That flaw is multifaceted, and seems complex, but to the great Understander (and probably many outsiders looking in at me), it must be obvious.
This isn't the final conclusion, but it's an ok start.
