Emotions

This topic is started for Hi-D and his desire to get deeper into emotions. What are they, why are they, of what are they made, what is their form vs. content, what do they mean, etc. Also, how do we talk about them? The language doesn't very well exist yet to discuss this clearly and competently, in philosophy or anywhere else. I think music and poetry come closest, perhaps.

Post your questions and thoughts on emotions here. And any relevant text you come across or think applicable.

Capable

Where are your contributions to kick this off? Check my gender marker please. A dude, really?

Parodites has discovered new emotions is it?  

Has anyone here experienced the higher emotions of Peace?  Joy?  Love?  All emotions that require innocence to approach them and none have an inkling of fear amongst them.  Also thoughts corrupt emotions.

Passion is not love. Peace is not calmness.  Joy is not laughter.

The way I look at emotions is that they are expressing meaning. Whatever the meaningful content behind an emotion is, beyond the feeling of it, that is the being of the emotion. Emotions aren't simply chemicals, the emotion involves pleasure and pain (attraction and repulsion sublimated physically-immediately) and the subtilization of these, their attenuation into literal human-meaningful experiences past and present -- what is meaningful is what affects us, what has significance for us, what becomes causal to us. For every potentially meaningful experience to human being there would be a corresponding emotion; the emotion is literally a condensation of many smaller feelings, impulses, perspectives and ideas that get concentrated "upward" psychologically-phenomenologically. The more comprehensive experiences include the less comprehensive ones.

Every experience is a kind of default perspective, a view from one thing to another thing. Like standing on a hill and looking down over the lands below, the experience is already implicitly a point of view location and a range that is surveyed. I understand ideas and feelings in the same way; every idea and every feeling is a point of view location and a range that is surveyed. When you combine together both the point of view location and what is being viewed you get the "quaila" of the idea or experience, how it feels to subjectivity, how we experience it.

Innocence is interesting because as you say, thought can corrupt emotions. It's well known to philosophers that thinking about emotions and meaning will undermine emotions and meaning by making them less potent, distributing their impact throughout consciousness. This isn't all bad though, because that is only the first stage; the second stage is to pick up those pieces and recombine them into emotions again, into meaning. I see innocence as being able to experience something without needing to be aware of the fact that one is experiencing it... although as self-conscious humans we are usually aware on some level that we are experiencing a thought, a feeling, a meaning, a sensory experience, this awareness remains external for innocence and doesn't really intrude on the experience itself; but once sufficient self-awareness develops then all experiences begin to incorporate their own "fact of being experienced" and this changes the nature of the experience, it moves from innocence to... something other than innocence. Innocence is like simply being filled with the experience itself, whereas thinking and self-awareness into experience is like changing every experience to be at least partially mental, converting experiences into ideas.

Yes I have experienced those emotions you mention. Often we don't have the right words for emotions we experience, just approximations. Passion, joy, peace, love, calmness, laughter, grief, these are useful approximations. And it's important to note that the emotion itself doesn't require the precise identification in language for us to experience it. Only philosophers and maybe writers/poets would be interested in trying to precisely explicate emotions in language.


"During the first stages of frenzy, a glut of
meaning descends on nature. As if to spite cynics
who call dirt nothing but dirt, terrific breezes
mere conveyors of pollen, something in the
sufferer’s mind seeks out and finds corroboration
in vast planets and puny insects; all are as prone to
nervous tics, all whirring with badly kept secrets.

Time passes, and the system turn on you. When
all is sacred, nothing is safe: silent lampposts suddenly
pipe up in irresistible  colloquy a tone too high, the sky
calls you but does not want your replies, and
water-bound birds decline pronouns in Latin. It is a hotbed
that cannot stand the addition of an offending
presence; it whispers until you are well on your way."

Rachel Wetzsteon


"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

EE Cummings


"I admired the beauty
   While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
   I wander in the air,
   Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
   Touch you and Asia
   At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
   And the glow of this grass.
   I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
   For a love-token."

Robinson Jeffers


"I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.
I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality. "

Robinson Jeffers


"When they laid you in the crook
of my arms like a bouquet and I looked
into your eyes, dark bits of evening sky,
I thought, of course this is you,
like a person who has never seen the sea
can recognize it instantly.

They pulled you from me like a cork
and all the love flowed out. I adored you
with the squandering passion of spring
that shoots green from every pore.

You dug me out like a well. You lit
the deadwood of my heart. You pinned me
to the earth with the points of stars.

I was sure that kind of love would be
enough. I thought I was your mother.
How could I have known that over and over
you would crack the sky like lightning,
illuminating all my fears, my weaknesses, my sins.

Massive the burden this flesh
must learn to bear, like mules of love."

Ellen Bass


You kind of need poetry to express an emotion in words or at least to communicate it to another person. Especially on text, where body language isn't a factor. Poetry is the use of image and metaphor, of "showing and not telling" something. Philosophy should attempt to use this poetic approach, to incorporated metaphor and image rather than just state things factually, and good philosophy does this, it's partly why Nietzsche is superior to almost every other philosopher.

A poem is a complex linguistic structure that aims to replicate how emotions are comprehensive over lesser feelings and experiences, combining them upward to form a summative experience that literally includes all those others. If you tried to define love, or joy, or rage, or remorse, you would need thousands and thousands of words to just begin to approach a sufficient definition. But in poetry, and philosophy too I think, we can use language to attempt to reconstruct an emotion, which is different from trying to define it.

Capable wrote:

The way I look at emotions is that they are expressing meaning.

...as well as an energy source.  

People don't refer to emotions as powerful emotions simple due to them rocking us as individuals in an internal chemical quandary; powerful emotions are similar to the expression of radiant energy which is not so subtle that other people are oblivious.  Emotions emit/radiate energy.  I can feel this as it becomes atmospheric when around other individuals who are 'expressing' deep-seated emotions.

Capable wrote:

once sufficient self-awareness develops then all experiences begin to incorporate their own "fact of being experienced" and this changes the nature of the experience, it moves from innocence to... something other than innocence. Innocence is like simply being filled with the experience itself, whereas thinking and self-awareness into experience is like changing every experience to be at least partially mental, converting experiences into ideas.

 

Innocence is an implicit trust given, an openness to being overwhelmed in a good way by an indelible experience and the loss of one's ego in the process.  It's akin to an automobile tune-up/alignment.

Capable wrote:

Yes I have experienced those emotions you mention.

Then by all means share.

When thoughts intrude on higher, pure emotions, the emotion loses its' potency like a balloon getting rapidly deflated and one's ego takes over hence the corruption that ensues such as the struggle of being stuck in disbelief, among other corruptions.  Disbelief may stem from the conflict between the true self and the ego self.  A true self is innocent, child-like while an ego self is steeped in deceit and knows it full well when contrasted against a true self experience.  This may rear up as a guilty feeling to follow, such as the ego self rationalizing that 'I don't deserve to feel whole'.

Edit

Capable wrote:

But in poetry, and philosophy too I think, we can use language to attempt to reconstruct an emotion, which is different from trying to define it.

Why must we choose?

Hi-D wrote:

Why must we choose?

Because to define a thing is not necessary in order to use it. Defining something (philosophy; understanding it) can both make something more open to being useful as well as make it less open to being useful. Understanding can change the nature of what is understood, as well as our own nature. This is why philosophy is so alien and different from every other kind of methodology known to humanity. The ideal of understanding as such is madness to any angle other than the philosophical one.

If you want to value emotions, I suggest you don't try to understand/define them, but simply experience them -- value them directly as they are.

Your idea of innocence is interesting as a contrast to ignorance. The innocence of being is perhaps being's greatest weapon against non-being; again, if life's "goal" we're survival then life would quickly die out after it randomly appeared anywhere. The goal isn't survival, there is no goal except for goals that rest atop a goalless state: the goalless state is the ever-expanding-ness of self-valuing being.

In this context, innocence is like that self-valuing able to value-expand itself without needing to realize this is what it's doing. It just "does it", because it is already-always a standard of health. Emotions are "unconscious" (non-cognitive) ways of communicating meaning-states to such an implicitly healthful being.

The reason there can be new and changing emotions is that there are near-infinite possible experiences of meaning and any number of these at any time can clump together to form a meaning-matrix. This matrix then begins to self-define itself by converting other meanings into its own terms; a self-defining meaning-matrix is like a very intense feeling, and only becomes a true emotion when this particular matrix has solidified over time into a sociocultural such that the matrix becomes transferable from one person to another, by means of learning language and common vocabularies as well as implicitly absorbing data from other people we are around as we grow up.

Although it's possible to generate new emotions within oneself, ones not expressive to others. When consciousness peaks toward maximum depth and comprehensivity in a philosophical capacity, this starts to happen: experiences begin to take on a unique emotional character as new "meaning-matrices" are forming spontaneously all the time. The emotions are short lived, and usually die out after they're experienced for the first time, I.e. they cannot really be experienced a second time, but we can access the memory of them and somewhat re-live the emotion by remembering it vividly.

This is from my other topic I made, on emotions; about as close to a philosophical (conceptual, rational, factual) definition-explanation of emotions I've been able to get at so far. Again, this is uncharted terrain and I pretty much need to make up the concepts as I go:


Feelings are the closest to what we call emotions, since an emotion is a reconstitution of a chain of meaning with respect to feelings; feelings are not only collections of self-sensations of physiological changes occurring in repeatable, stable patterns but also include the further meaning that is attached to those feelings, what is technically not included in the feeling and acts as an external content to it, a content that can be variable from one person to another or from one moment to another in the same person. That external content is a phenomenology that is rooted socially-historically as pure meanings prescient to human being and as just the Fact of such meanings, which pure being of the meaningful is technically what we mean when we speak of emotions; emotions are this being plus the feelings (as defined above) that constitute the emotion in time and space. The emotion in space is the plurality of feelings structural to an emotion; the emotion in time is the relation between the spatial components and the phenomenological meaningful/Factual.

Capable

Just checked and there's no full moon, but people are behaving oddly, you included.  You okay?

Capable wrote:

Understanding can change the nature of what is understood, as well as our own nature.

That makes no sense to me unless the "is" becomes a "was."  

Capable wrote:

if life's "goal" we're survival then life would quickly die out after it randomly appeared anywhere.

Randomness is an illusion.

Capable wrote:

Emotions are "unconscious" (non-cognitive) ways of communicating meaning-states to such an implicitly healthful being.

The reason there can be new and changing emotions is that there are near-infinite possible experiences of meaning and any number of these at any time can clump together to form a meaning-matrix.

Emotions are processed by one's soul though. "The reason" I need to experience; where do I sign up?

Hi-D wrote

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Passion is not love. Peace is not calmness. Joy is not laughter.

But there is a kind of passion that does speak to love. Not a sexual or romantic kind of passion though passion in itself flows through human sexuality - but the passion which begins in experiencing the suffering of others, then transcends the emotions themselves and reach out to others.


Peace may be experienced as a kind of calmness. The absence of peace to me is chaos though peace may still be felt among chaos.


Joy is not laughter? Perhaps we can transpose those to words. Laughter can definitely give rise to joy but I'm not speaking here of insane, absurd laughter but the pristine landscape of a free heart. Joy sometimes cannot but help burst through with laughter.

Capable wrote:

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Understanding can change the nature of what is understood, as well as our own nature.

But is it really its "nature" which changes? Or is it simply our own changed "perception" of how we once viewed something.
But yes, understanding something for the first time perhaps is capable of changing who we are.

Capable wrote:

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It's well known to philosophers that thinking about emotions and meaning will undermine emotions and meaning by making them less potent, distributing their impact throughout consciousness.

Why would that even be so? Don't you think that thinking about E&M might just put them in their proper place - not necessarily undermining or lessening them?

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I see innocence as being able to experience something without needing to be aware of the fact that one is experiencing it

Can you also see innocence as being able to experience something without judging it - just observing it?
I somehow find that to be a better definition of innocence but I may be wrong.

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to experience something without needing to be aware of the fact that one is experiencing it

But isn't that a good thing - to be able to sense and be aware of what we're experiencing?
When would that be a negative?

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Innocence is like simply being filled with the experience itself

,

Perhaps you do have a point there. Like a little child playing in a sandbox, enjoying the experience, the sensation of it, but not focusing on what it really means. Just being one with it. Thinking about it would take him/her out of the moment.

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whereas thinking and self-awareness into experience is like changing every experience to be at least partially mental, converting experiences into ideas.

Maybe. Can't the above be kind of like a loop? Hard to express what I'm trying to say. One can give way to the other which in turn flows back.
I look up at the sky on a gorgeous day and that gives way to thinking that perhaps there might be Something (but not like anything we know. Sensation and intuition give rise to thought and self-awareness which in turn returns me to the human experience, that sensation and intuition, that mystery and unknowing which keeps my eyes centered on that sky.

Wyld,

A soul.  There is some discussion occurring over at ILP regarding its constitution, placement, job, etc.  The bread crumbs need to be gathered carefully and arranged so its importance comes into the light which will help the scientific POV regarding logic, consciousness, and squash some overall identity issues.  Emotions are one key to resolving the nature of reality.

jerkey is arguing one major issue with JSS, the scientific approach towards understanding I believe.

Just don't be messing with my emotions though, Okay?

[quote="Hi-D"]Wyld,

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Emotions are one key to resolving the nature of reality.

How do emotions do that?

Sisyphus wrote:

Just don't be messing with my emotions though, Okay?

If we allow someone to "mess" with our emotions, aren't we being a slave to our own emotions and allowing others to be our masters?

I see emotions as quite simply the waters of our being congregating. An emotion is a 'pool of fluids' in a sense, a conflux of essences, that then forms an identity of experience for a moment, a locus to our self-valuing.

Thoughts I might see as more purely electrical congregations, and the process that integrates thought and emotion, which is philosophy, could be seen as 'electrical water'; it produces states of being far superior to either emotion or thought.

It is important to distinguish emotions from other inner states. It is important to attribute cohesion methods, specify the area in which emotions can appear.
Some people are without emotions, such as many victims of sexual abuse; perhaps as much as half of all men on earth have been raped out of their emotive capacity by careless women at an early age.

Arcturus Descending wrote:

Sisyphus wrote:

Just don't be messing with my emotions though, Okay?

If we allow someone to "mess" with our emotions, aren't we being a slave to our own emotions and allowing others to be our masters?

Yes. That happens often. Emotions are great motivators but also vicious traps.

Fixed Cross wrote:

Thoughts I might see as more purely electrical congregations, and the process that integrates thought and emotion, which is philosophy, could be seen as 'electrical water'; it produces states of being far superior to either emotion or thought.

It is important to distinguish emotions from other inner states. It is important to attribute cohesion methods, specify the area in which emotions can appear.

Agree. I have said many times that I love my emotions but really, if I should lose some of them it would allow me to respond to various situation in life in a much more logical manner.

But feeling our emotions allows us to feel alive. I don't want to be a Spock.

Arc wrote:

How do emotions do that?

Emotions are the pinnacle of experience, without them we are PCs processing data, beings without any influence.

I'll try to add more to this later.

"Sisyphus

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Agree.  I have said many times that I love my emotions but really, if I should lose some of them it would allow me to respond to various situation in life in a much more logical manner.

Did you mean to say that you would like to lose some of the specific emotions - for instance, love, hate, fear, rage, joy, rapture, etc.
or just the way in which you react or respond to them?
Do you feel that as human beings, we need to experience all of them but at the same time balancing them, realizing their purpose?

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But feeling our emotions allows us to feel alive.  I don't want to be a Spock.

 

Yes, they do. I personally would never want to become a machine.
We probably couldn't become Spock. Humans suppressing emotions, well, one might become an erupting volcano.
Just think of the harmony and stillness which is created when the emotions become still waters.
We need a balance of emotions and right reason but sometimes we need rapture.
I wonder if rapture can also be stilled joy...joy reined in. lol
I'm rambling.

A nice bit of rambling none-the-less.

Arcturus Descending wrote:

"Sisyphus

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Agree.  I have said many times that I love my emotions but really, if I should lose some of them it would allow me to respond to various situation in life in a much more logical manner.

Did you mean to say that you would like to lose some of the specific emotions - for instance, love, hate, fear, rage, joy, rapture, etc.
or just the way in which you react or respond to them?
Do you feel that as human beings, we need to experience all of them but at the same time balancing them, realizing their purpose?

Excellent question, really. Yes, I was suggesting "the way in which I react or respond to them". Our ability to feel emotions is an evolutionary thing, even the "negatives" of hate & fear. They are based in our survival instincts. They help keep us alive.

But then, how we react to them is determined by how knowledgeable we are o our emotions and what conditions push the various buttons.

The negatives can be reduced with knowledge of those things we fear, and hate. With knowledge we will find that most of our fears and hates are less serious than what we pretend they are.

Rage is something different, I think. Over-reacting or maybe letting something boil until it explodes. This is linked to stress, I think. The more stressed we are the easier it will be for us to grow rage.

But all of these can be reduced significantly with knowledge of the causes and why we react the way we do.

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But feeling our emotions allows us to feel alive.  I don't want to be a Spock.

 

Yes, they do. I personally would never want to become a machine.
We probably couldn't become Spock. Humans suppressing emotions, well, one might  become an erupting volcano.
Just think of the harmony and stillness which is created when the emotions become still waters.
We need a balance of emotions and right reason but sometimes we need rapture.
I wonder if rapture can also be stilled joy...joy reined in. lol
I'm rambling.

"Harmony" is a word concept I speak of often at the Taoist forum. Balance is very hard to attain and impossible to maintain because everything is in constant change. So we seek harmony instead. Too much Yang? Add some Yin. Too much Yin? Add some yang. Singers always sound better when they sing in harmony.

Sisyphus

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A nice bit of rambling none-the-less.

Thank you. I learned about rambling from observing rivers.

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Excellent question, really.  Yes, I was suggesting "the way in which I react or respond to them".  Our ability to feel emotions is an evolutionary thing, even the "negatives" of hate & fear.  They are based in our survival instincts.  They help keep us alive.

Yes, they do help keep us alive. How else can hate and fear serve us?

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But then, how we react to them is determined by how knowledgeable we are o our emotions and what conditions push the various buttons.

This is true but at the same time, what do we need besides that "knowledge" to not react but to rather respond? Reacting being irrational and responding being more rational?

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The negatives can be reduced with knowledge of those things we fear, and hate.  With knowledge we will find that most of our fears and hates are less serious than what we pretend they are.

I'm not saying that you're wrong but why would we pretend that our fears and hates are more serious?

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Rage is something different, I think.  Over-reacting or maybe letting something boil until it explodes.  This is linked to stress, I think.  The more stressed we are the easier it will be for us to grow rage.

This is true but what can be done, besides alleviating stress, to counteract rage?

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But all of these can be reduced significantly with knowledge of the causes and why we react the way we do.

True. How do we go about getting this "knowledge"?

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"Harmony" is a word concept I speak of often at the Taoist forum.

It's a beautiful word.

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 Balance is very hard to attain and impossible to maintain because everything is in constant change.

I think that for some individuals it is much easier than for others. But nature is in constant change but it still seems to maintain a balance. At least it seems to. But perhaps not so much at first. Like us, it rises up, changes, struggles and then assumes its equanimity.


 

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So we seek harmony instead.

 

But isn't harmony a form of balance? I don't think that we can experience harmony without balance.

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Too much Yang?  Add some Yin.  Too much Yin?  Add some yang

.

lol So attaining to harmony or wholeness is no more nor less than the right ingredients to make a Reese's' peanut butter cup. Yummy.
I like a nice combination of both yin and yang. It's called twilight.

 

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Singers always sound better when they sing in harmony.

Sisyphus wrote,

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I learned about rambling from observing rivers.  

Yes, they go with the flow.  But be careful, some have waterfalls.

Waterfalls are beautiful to behold.

If we are waterfalls, would our emotions be descending or rising?
What effect do they have on you, if any?

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Yes, they do help keep us alive.  How else can hate and fear serve us?

I can't think of any other conditions for either fear or hate.  Both will eat up our inner essence if we hold to them for too long.

True - holding them for too long is just toxic. What I was basically speaking to is how hate and fear can speak to us, if we can take some moments to stand back from them, observe them non-judgmentally,  within ourselves at the time. In other words, what am I really dealing with here?  Is there any "real" basis for what I'm feeling and/or is something really about something else.
But emotions can be slipper slopes.

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This is true but  at the same time, what do we need besides that "knowledge"  to not react but to rather respond? Reacting being irrational and responding being more rational?

Sometimes there is no time to respond based on rational thinking.  We need to do something "right now".  This would be an instinctual reaction.  But yes, always, if there is time permitting we should respond in a rational manner.

True. What I was going for is the discipline and practice of holding back, taking a breath, getting out of our own way, quieting ego.

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I'm not saying that you're wrong but  why would we pretend that our fears and hates are more serious?

I reserve the right to be wrong.  

That's refreshing.  

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I do try to be beyond right and wrong.  

How do you go about that considering that sometimes things have a way of turning out differently than you would think they would?
What IS beyond right and wrong to YOU? Is that always the better way to go?

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 But I often point out that unless I am quoting someone everything I say is my opinion or understanding.

Again, refreshing. Sometimes what I say is that these are just my musings.
Except for bare facts, everything usually is just opinion and one's own interpreation.

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However, there are many people who live no telling people about their fears and hatred.  This only makes those fears and hatred stronger.  They do it intentionally so they can justify their fears and hatred.

I do agree with you that for some, many, that is the case. But do you think that THAT is the only reason that other individuals don't talk about their fears and hatred? I can think of at least two more off the top of my head. Can you think of more?

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This is true but what can be done, besides alleviating stress, to counteract rage?

Meditate.  Self thought.  Be honest at least with our self.

Sometimes having a good cry helps. Sometimes rages comes about I think because we sometimes realize how powerless we are at times.
I have a good cleansing cry (I am a woman after and oh, so very weak lol), The crying releases the toxins and also relaxes me so that I can then think more clearly.
By self thought, do you mean introspection?

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True.  How do we go about getting this "knowledge"?

Through studying those concepts that relate to fear and hatred.  Also by personal experiences.  And very important, I think, is to judge every experience based solely on that experience.  To try to understand the "cause and effect" chain.

What concepts relate to fear and hatred? Did you mean to say "causes"?

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And very important, I think, is to judge every experience based solely on that experience

THAT I think is a really important one. Certain things trigger our memories and emotions and so we're not necessarily judging from the present moment, we're judging from past ones.
The cause and effect "chain" can bring us back to our roots, to our psychological ones. It's important to see when we are being affected by something in our past which we can let go of, each time the residues of those things come upon  us. But also to remember that what is happening in the here and now might simply be what is effecting us - if any of that made sense to you. I don't always  express myself so well that people would understand.

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I think that for some individuals it is much easier than for others. But nature  is in constant change but it still seems to maintain a balance. At least it seems to. But perhaps not so much at first. Like us, it rises up, changes, struggles and then assumes its equanimity.

I don't know if others sense it in that way but it is my perception and my "musing".

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 Yes, our capabilities and capacities vary from one individual and another.  We each are special and unique.  Nature goes through its ups and downs too.  All violent weather is a means for getting closer to a fair balance.  Volcanos is a perfect example.  They blow their top and then they rest for a while.

I agree with this. We ourselves are so like nature. If we all took the time to observe nature, we could learn from it.

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But isn't harmony a form of balance?  I don't think that we can experience harmony without balance.

I suppose it can be viewed that way.  I just avoid speaking of balance because it is too easy to think that once we achieve balance everything will be fine.  Sure, it will be fine until the next change that effects our life.

Maybe harmony is more a form of synergy or maybe  synergy leads to harmony.

Maybe "speaking" of balance reminds some part of our mind that there is such a thing. Like a mantra of sorts. If we utter the word balance with great focus, maybe we'll find ourselves "there" -- for this time anyway.

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Sure, it will be fine until the next change that effects our life.

But for this moment, we're THERE, right?


.

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lol So attaining to harmony or wholeness is no more nor less than the right ingredients to make a Reese's' peanut butter cup. Yummy.
I like a nice combination of both yin and yang. It's called twilight.


Nicely said.  I have some Reese's in the fridge just in case.  And yes, we need some action (Yang) in our life but when the actin is complete we need the rest (Yin).  Yeah, twilight and dawn.  Harmony between light and dark. [/color]

Do/did you really have R's in your fridge? lol

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Harmony between light and dark.

Ineffable solitude.


PS I think that you can still distinguish between your posts and mine. I thought that I had eradicated the color but it seemed to like putting my posts in color too. I would have chosen a different color. lol

WoW!  What a fantastic response and questions.  I am going to break this down and respond in a number of posts to hopefully avoid confusion (on my part).


Edit to add: the computer is messing with me. I will work on it.

You are red.
My previous response is white.
My new response is blue.



I learned about rambling from observing rivers.

Yes, they go with the flow. But be careful, some have waterfalls.

Waterfalls are beautiful to behold.

If we are waterfalls, would our emotions be descending or rising?
What effect do they have on you, if any?

Yes, I enjoy viewing waterfalls.  I didn't mean we are waterfalls.  I meant there are waterfalls in most waterways regarding "going with the flow".

But your association is valid, I think.  I will link descending with negative and rising with positive.  The negative emotions I experience just bring me down whereas the positive are uplifting.  I try to release the negative emotions as quickly as I can.  Sometimes it takes more time than is healthy for me.


Yes, they do help keep us alive. How else can hate and fear serve us?

I can't think of any other conditions for either fear or hate. Both will eat up our inner essence if we hold to them for too long.

True - holding them for too long is just toxic. What I was basically speaking to is how hate and fear can speak to us, if we can take some moments to stand back from them, observe them non-judgmentally, within ourselves at the time. In other words, what am I really dealing with here? Is there any "real" basis for what I'm feeling and/or is something really about something else.
But emotions can be slipper slopes.

That almost sounds Buddhist.  A good practice, I suppose but I have never consciously tried it.


This is true but at the same time, what do we need besides that "knowledge" to not react but to rather respond? Reacting being irrational and responding being more rational?

Sometimes there is no time to respond based on rational thinking. We need to do something "right now". This would be an instinctual reaction. But yes, always, if there is time permitting we should respond in a rational manner.

True. What I was going for is the discipline and practice of holding back, taking a breath, getting out of our own way, quieting ego.

I do meditate.  I use the "empty-minded" method.  It helps me.


I'm not saying that you're wrong but why would we pretend that our fears and hates are more serious?

I reserve the right to be wrong.

That's refreshing.

Thanks.

I do try to be beyond right and wrong.

How do you go about that considering that sometimes things have a way of turning out differently than you would think they would?

What IS beyond right and wrong to YOU? Is that always the better way to go?

That is Taoist philosophy from Chuang Tzu.  Basically, the Sage does what must be done and that is all.  He does not concern him/her self with the praise or blame by others.

Yes, doing what needs be done; nothing less, nothing more.  And done with no hidden agenda.


But I often point out that unless I am quoting someone everything I say is my opinion or understanding.

Again, refreshing. Sometimes what I say is that these are just my musings.
Except for bare facts, everything usually is just opinion and one's own interpretation.

Indeed.  And even most of what we read and hear is just another's opinion or understanding.


However, there are many people who live not telling people about their fears and hatred. This only makes those fears and hatred stronger. They do it intentionally so they can justify their fears and hatred.

I do agree with you that for some, many, that is the case. But do you think that THAT is the only reason that other individuals don't talk about their fears and hatred? I can think of at least two more off the top of my head. Can you think of more?

The only thing that comes to my mind is that if they talk about them they are just reinforced.  Don't want that.


This is true but what can be done, besides alleviating stress, to counteract rage?

Meditate. Self thought. Be honest at least with our self.

Sometimes having a good cry helps. Sometimes rages comes about I think because we sometimes realize how powerless we are at times.

I have a good cleansing cry (I am a woman after and oh, so very weak lol), The crying releases the toxins and also relaxes me so that I can then think more clearly.

By self thought, do you mean introspection?

Yeah, but big boys don't cry, you know.  

Yes, introspection is the proper word.


True.  How do we go about getting this "knowledge"?

Through studying those concepts that relate to fear and hatred.  Also by personal experiences.  And very important, I think, is to judge every experience based solely on that experience.  To try to understand the "cause and effect" chain.

What concepts relate to fear and hatred? Did you mean to say "causes"?

Again, yes, "causes" is the proper word.  And don't you know, we are taught fear and hatred by others.  We need to remove this stuff from our mind.


And very important, I think, is to judge every experience based solely on that experience

THAT I think is a really important one. Certain things trigger our memories and emotions and so we're not necessarily judging from the present moment, we're judging from past ones.

The cause and effect "chain" can bring us back to our roots, to our psychological ones. It's important to see when we are being affected by something in our past which we can let go of, each time the residues of those things come upon  us. But also to remember that what is happening in the here and now might simply be what is effecting us - if any of that made sense to you. I don't always  express myself so well that people would understand.

You said that very well.  I need not add anything.


Yes, our capabilities and capacities vary from one individual and another.  We each are special and unique.  Nature goes through its ups and downs too.  All violent weather is a means for getting closer to a fair balance.  Volcanos is a perfect example.  They blow their top and then they rest for a while.

I agree with this. We ourselves are so like nature. If we all took the time to observe nature, we could learn from it.

Yep.  We are a part of nature and mostly live in accordance with "our" nature.  When we don't there are most often unwanted consequences.


But isn't harmony a form of balance?  I don't think that we can experience harmony without balance.

I suppose it can be viewed that way.  I just avoid speaking of balance because it is too easy to think that once we achieve balance everything will be fine.  Sure, it will be fine until the next change that effects our life.


Maybe harmony is more a form of synergy or maybe  synergy leads to harmony.

Maybe "speaking" of balance reminds some part of our mind that there is such a thing. Like a mantra of sorts. If we utter the word balance with great focus, maybe we'll find ourselves "there" -- for this time anyway.

It's just a personal thing for me.  Balance is fine when used to define a state we wish to be in.


Sure, it will be fine until the next change that effects our life.

But for this moment, we're THERE, right?

Point on.  We are always where we are.  Like those maps at highway rest areas.  "You are here."


lol So attaining to harmony or wholeness is no more nor less than the right ingredients to make a Reese's' peanut butter cup. Yummy.

I like a nice combination of both yin and yang. It's called twilight.


Nicely said.  I have some Reese's in the fridge just in case.  And yes, we need some action (Yang) in our life but when the actin is complete we need the rest (Yin).  Yeah, twilight and dawn.  Harmony between light and dark.

Do/did you really have R's in your fridge? lol

Chuckles.  Thanks.  Yes, I still have some.  Leftovers from Halloween.  I didn't have many visitors this year so I have a lot of candy I have to eat all by myself.