Humans pride themselves on being somehow different from animals. Their consciousness, their intellect, their opposable thumbs. Humans grasp onto straws to differentiate themselves from their animal brethren. In fact, they use it to differentiate themselves from all life and inanimate objects. They use it to differentiate themselves from reality. An impossible task that is likely to lead to much devastation along the way. Fracking and deforestation speak for themselves.
Humans may try to make this distinction of themselves being above, superior to other beings, to all of existence, but it is a futile task. They themselves are a part of this existence, this universe. They are not apart from it. It’s only a space between two letters but the dissimilarity could not be more stark. A part. Apart. One of the wonderful faculties of the human mind that escapes most intellect are emotions. Of course many humans claim this is yet another differentiator between yourselves and the rest of existence, but it is not. If anything it roots you further into existence and your animal heritage than it does to excel you above the rest.
Human emotions seem to exist to override the conscious mind. In Freudian terms the Id overrides the Ego. The influence of the Super Ego reduces to nearly nil. Although it can be called as a witness for the defence when there is no logical defence. Passion overtakes logic and decision-making frequently becomes reactive and irrational. But this is also part of the human charm. It is what drives people to make transcendent art and develop incredible mental models. But often in everyday life they’re used in excess and destructively.
Navigating through human society is to navigate the storm ridden seas of human emotion. I have learned not only to recognise and understand these emotions, but to feel them for myself. I have lost my head on many occasions. Each one typically followed by a state of shame and disappointment. How could I let my mind be overruled like that? How could I take those actions I have? Emotion is a fundamental tenet of humanity, but it can also make monsters of the immature.
When humans reach a level of understanding of life where they accept that the existence of emotion is part and parcel of what it means to be a human, when they have reached a level of maturity which recognises the interdependency of all reality, they come to treasure emotion rather than berate it. They celebrate it and create contexts for its expression rather than calling up an army of rationale to justify its repression.
Emotions agitate humans. Often irrationally. It is often upsetting to the status quo. Whether its expression manifests in laughter or crying out, the expression changes the context. It is a disruption and is quickly labelled into those most simple but useless definitions of human understanding: good or bad. This attachment of value to emotion has tainted all human understanding of emotion. Even the most accredited psychiatrists will have to deal with how certain emotions are perceived in certain contexts.
It is easy to lump the ethereal into a label, but it is destructive. I’ve found most human beings yearning for any context where they can express emotion without judgement. Perhaps this is what the priest was originally for? But even then, it was followed up with a call for repentance, a value-judgement placed on the expression. I’m not sure that emotions are intrinsically negative or positive. Better or worse. They simply are a part of being a human. To better understand these emotions I will attempt to describe them from my perspective. How they have been expressed, in what contexts and how they affected the world around their expression. I believe there are safe spaces for humans to emote various feelings. I believe there can be healthy expressions and unhealthy expressions: a far more useful definition than right or wrong.
Every day I am reminded, through interactions with people, that billions suffer from a disconnect between themselves and their emotional existence. They are trapped or lost within their own minds and the feelings overriding their minds. If what I have to write helps one person find a sign out of their disarray it will have been worth it. Although I don’t think the exercise is worthless even if this result is not achieved. At the end of the day I would like the sense I make of things to be a tool for others to make sense of things for themselves. In a healthy way. The hopeful airs of an erudite ape in the face of so much hopelessness.
The emotions I plan on investigating are:
- Joy
- Sadness
- Anger
- Fear
- Disgust
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