Estimated reading time: 7 min.
Dear reader,
Welcome back to Guiding Words.
In the previous lesson, we uncovered the nature of happiness and concluded that instead of chasing happiness, we should strive to achieve a perpetually deeper state of Serenity while, simultaneously, designing a life optimized for moments of happiness.
In this lesson, we will dive into some semantics by exploring the meaning of the words emotion and feeling and explain why the path is not as important as the destination.
Let’s begin with some Words of Art:
The limit of our human experience is defined by the limit of the set of emotions and feelings nature gave us to experience it.
Before we begin delving into the differences between emotions and feelings, I want to pay homage to the work of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who has dedicated his career to helping us better understand the brain and consciousness. Antonio Damasio has written many books – a very comprehensive one on our current subject being: Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious – and appeared in many interviews. His work is worth exploring for anyone interested in what science has to say on the subject of feelings and consciousness.
That being said, what are emotions?
Emotions, which originate as sensations in the body, are intense feelings (exhilaration, terror, despair) that last only seconds to minutes. They are controlled by chemicals our brains release in response to a trigger or event – basically our body's response to whatever is happening around us.
What are feelings?
While emotions start as sensations in the body, feelings are generated from our thoughts about those emotions. Or in other words, feelings are how we interpret emotions and let them sink in.
The excerpts above are from a very well written article titled: Emotions vs. Feelings vs. Moods from the Dakota Family Services Outpatient Mental Health Care. To learn more, please follow the link to access the full article which is available on their website.
Now that we have understood the main difference between emotions and feelings, how many basic emotions do humans have?
There are a couple of theories of basic emotions, but one of the most popular ones was developed by the American psychologist Paul Ekman and suggests that humans have seven universal emotions:
- Anger
- Contempt
- Disgust
- Enjoyment
- Fear
- Sadness
- Surprise
When it comes to emotions and feelings, let’s hear some Words of Art that express a fundamental question that we should all ask ourselves from time to time:
Why am I running around so much?
What am I trying to feel that I have not felt before?
As we’ve mentioned in the beginning of this lesson, our experience of life is limited by the palette of emotions that nature has put at our disposal, the same way that a painter is limited by the RYB system, also known as the three primary colors: Red, Yellow and Blue, from which every other color is derived.
Every human, as long as he is made of flesh and bones from brain to toes, is bound by the limits of our common emotions. That statement applies both to the wealthiest CEO of a major conglomerate in the year 2696 and to the poorest English farmer in 1696. The variation in emotions and feelings between the CEO and the farmer are in the predominant emotions and feelings each will feel throughout his lifetime and not in a different special kind of emotion and feeling that one can feel because of his status and that is not available to the other. Our emotions and feelings are one of our common denominators as members of the same species.
Therefore,
For your body to have experienced all the basic emotions and your mind all the possible combination of feelings means that you have fully experienced what it feels like to be human.
At that point, there won’t be any new emotions or feelings to experience, and any number of years added to your life will not yield any new ones.
Therefore, do not seek power, wealth, or pleasure, instead seek experiences that will lead to the most diverse range of emotions and feelings.
Go to many places, try many things, and fill yourself to the brim with emotions and feelings.
Stuff yourself with experiences ad nauseam until you feel satiated to the point that no additional experiences, stories from faraway lands or extraordinary must-try experiences can move your soul.
When you have reached that state, you will not have to try to let go anymore. Letting go will come naturally because there will be nothing left for desire to hold on to.
On the one hand, we are limited by the same set of emotions and feelings as everyone else, but on the other, we are free to choose the paths to reach them. Therein lies the source of our greatest freedom and equality but also some of our deepest sufferings.
The Ghanaian shoemaker in his little hut can feel as much joy or sadness as the Fortune 500 CEO in his corner office. The emotions available to both to experience the events of their lives are the same – therefore they are equal – but the meaning each of them gives to those emotions can be very different and, as such, each one is free to choose feelings that will lead to suffering or to serenity.
Once you understand that every desire leads to the same sets of emotions, you can pay greater attention to your desires and ask yourself if the price that must be paid to feel a certain emotion is worth it and if there isn’t a better way to achieve the same emotional state. If reading can lead to joy as much as drinking, which path to joy should you take and why?
Once you understand that every desire leads to the same sets of emotions, you can pay greater attention to your feelings to both understand how your thoughts are shaping your feelings and how you can change the narrative, and by doing so, change the feeling and, despite not being able to change anything about the situation, change everything about the emotion that is felt.
The emotion is always the final destination, therefore choose your feelings wisely and your desires carefully. Don’t aim to control the event/circumstance, instead control the narrative and by doing so you will shape your feelings and guide them to the desired emotion. However, remember that once you have felt it all, you have lived it all and every moment becomes a repetition of the same sets of emotions and feelings. It is only when you have truly understood that, that both the desires of the ego and the external conditions it is subject to, will not matter anymore, because every emotion and feeling that they could lead to has already been felt once if not countless times. With the end of desires and the indifference to external circumstances comes the end of suffering and, with the end of suffering, only Serenity is left.
This concludes our lesson on the nature of emotions and feelings. In the next lesson, we will explore the nature of freedom.
See you in three days and until then, may Serenity be upon you.
Didi
Question: After reading this lesson, can you think of how you can change your narrative and influence your feelings?
Reply with a yes or no and feel free to go beyond two or three characters.
P.S.: I am trying to find the right words to convey my thoughts in a language that is not mine, so please pardon my mistakes and feel free to reply with any suggestions and/or corrections that can make this reading experience more enjoyable.
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