Emotional connection is what gives life its meaning and value in many aspects and allows us our growth as well as our undrstanding of the beauty and purpose of existence in harmony with all other life on the planet as well as elsewhere I'm sure.
Emotion is irrational and destructive.
Try again.
Emotion is the only source of drive we humans have, and the only thing that makes us get up in the morning instead of just lie and feel no urge to do anything.
While this may seem as stretching the definition somewhat, there is no difference between the complex dopamine/serotonin reactions that allow us to do anything, from lifting a glass to writing a book, and the chemical reactions that allow us to laugh, or feel like crying.
You may want to quantify emotion as love and hate or whatever romanticist connotations you wanna have on the human experience, but emotion is merely the form of drive evolution has yielded us, now some is alot more complex and working on a much more complex level, but its all same of the same thing.
Such a blatant catch all statement as "emotion is irrational and destructive" smacks of bull headed ignorance.
Even by the slim definition i believe you're implying, i.e. feeling happy, sad or angry, even then emotion is what drives the best of the human experience. Without anger at mistreatment of humans would John Brown have taken his stand against slavery? Without feeling guilty or sad at human suffering, would billions have been donated to all the charities over the year? Without the compelling drive to succeed, would we be living in the most peaceful and economically prosperous time in human history? I could go on but you get the point.
Yes if you feel an emotion, it doesn't necessarily mean anything, and you shouldn't go out and cave someones head in just cause you feel angry, but in a balanced, rational mind, emotion is what gives us our humanity. Apathy in the face of injustice is no rational thing.
In other words it might sound cool and stoic to reject all emotion, but you're really just being a douche.