It is easy to be fooled into thinking that our emotions (or at least some of them) are hindrances that a good life is lived in spite of rather than achieved in collaboration with. Indeed, some of our thoughts and motivations are so shameful that it is difficult even to admit that we have them. It is my opinion that these dark and ugly things that live in the places where we hide stuff are useful. They should be shown to the light and dissected until what they want and why they want it is obvious.
My goal is to give you confidence in yourself that is derived from something solid and defensible. I want to share with you my understanding of emotions. Where they come from, what their job is, and what I think you should do with them.
The first step to understanding anything biological, as our emotions are, is to understand evolution. So guess what we’re doing next?
Here is, I hope, an explanation of evolution that will give you some insight into your origin, and thereby some inkling of your value and your power. The study of evolution can be thought of as the study of change: What mechanisms are responsible for this change? Why are these mechanisms successful? How will these mechanisms cope with future changes to the environment they find themselves in?
A general answer to all the questions of evolution goes something like this: Things that work, survive. When more than one thing works, the things that work best do better. Things that don’t work, die.
You are a product of evolution. You are the most recent incarnation of a pattern that has been relentlessly modified to contend with the structure of reality for 3.5 billions years(1), which means that you and the first piece of life on this planet are joined together by an unbroken line that spans literal eons.The next time you are tempted to dismiss your emotions or the emotions of other people, consider this: the thing you share in common with each and every creature that has lived and every creature currently alive, is that you are made of the stuff that has what it took to make it this far. The messages and signals that bubble up from within you and them are not arbitrary flights of fancy. Each one is the result of the successes and failures of all those before you interacting with the specific challenges of your life.
I find it helpful to think of emotions as tools. Like a hammer shouldn’t be used to do a screwdriver’s job, certain situations are best informed by certain feelings. More importantly, I think, they are alike in the sense that a master carpenter can do more with a hammer than a novice can; experience brings expertise.
I also find it helpful to think of emotions as simple personalities(after all, what is a personality but a tool for living); each one with specific beliefs about how the world is and how it should be. The reason so many have been amalgamated into one creature (us) is because the world is a lot of things, should be a lot things, and needs to be interacted with in many different ways to become those things.
The last way I’ll have you think of emotions is as selfish members of an orchestra. They are very good at the instruments they play, but they only care about how they sound, and because of that, the most beautiful songs are beyond them. What they need is a conductor, someone to hear them as a whole and to provide direction. To rein in errant solos and praise symbiotic melodies. For this role evolution provides you. The thing that sees the world, experiences emotion, and makes decisions.
I think you should train yourself to notice which emotions motivate which decisions in which circumstances, and then how you feel about the outcomes of those decisions. You and your orchestra should perform concerts, judge your performances, and then use what you learn to do better next time.
You should work together, to create ever more beautiful music.
By James Rowarth
