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Emotions are cognition. I think in the blooming of rationality as a mode of engaging the world we forgot to keep that in mind. It is easy to focus on the mode o

Emotions are cognition. I think in the blooming of rationality as a mode of engaging the world we forgot to keep that in mind. It is easy to focus on the mode of cognition most amenable to rational methods, the verbal. Just because emotions are not words does not mean they do not follow their own logic. Engaging your emotions 'rationally' is extremely important! There is a reason why we fall in love with people who speak to us in a way that seems to transcend mere words. Emotions change as they are 'processed' and as new observations are made. That sounds like a 'logical' process to me. It's just hard to turn such processes into processes involving words (at least for me!). Geometric, visual thinking is often as invaluable as logical, verbal thinking in mathematics. I believe that emotional thinking (some uses of the word 'thought' render that phrase paradoxical) is valuable in many human undertakings, too. I admire those who can swiftly translate emotions into words and back again. It is a form of power just barely beyond my grasp.

hosh 11y ago
Yep, there are different intelligences including emotional intelligence. It uses a different part of the mind. Emotions don't have logic or rationality, but they do have a observable, sometimes predictable dynamic. The processing of emotions are simple: experience it when it arises, allow it to do it's thing, and allow it to pass. There isn't a need to comment on it, though it is possible to gain some interesting insights by observing them.
- unabst 11y ago
  Not just observing. Expressing is also key and is actually what most of us spend our time doing. At a higher level philanthropy is tied to empathy, terrorism to fear, entertainment to fun, food to hunger, family to love, even sleep to sleepiness, and so on. Human civilization practically runs on emotion and barbaric it is, but then what would we be left with? Maybe it's control that we should be after...
  - hosh 11y ago
    Observing is the foundational skill. Expression is secondary and not what it is cracked up to be. I've found that most of the time, people don't want to know what you are feeling. They want to know that you are feeling what they are feeling. The most crudest form of that is mirroring techniques, but that's actually not necessary and can be detrimental. It's a bandaid because the person is ignorant or unskilled in healing. There is a Sanskrit word called "dukkha" that doesn't have an easy English cognate. The closest would be "existential anguish", something that lies underneath every single experience. There is a particular way of opening yourself up to someone else's dukkha that I've found extremely effective. It's at that point, you forget about yourself ("this isn't about you"), and you drop all your psychological armoring, shielding, interpretations, etc. When I am mindful enough to remember to do that, people tend to walk away feeling better, even if I never say anything. Just listen. Being able to do that requires meditation, and you first start with observing emotions as they come and go. It does not end there. At some point, you directly experience the insight that your self is an illusion, that this existential misery underlies everything and you cannot escape, and that the ground of being is emptiness. It's at that point you can listen to the dukkha.
unabst 11y ago
Emotions are physical and are axiomatic to experience. It's hard to reason with something that doesn't talk back, hence most emotional states are altered via new experience and not reason -- such as a hug or a cookie. Emotion is a constant stream of something real that emerges from within. We proceed to express them with thought, dance, music, etc. Without them we would have very little to express or digest. Most thought and contemplation can be traced to an emotion that we had or that isn't going away. eg. Hunger begs for the experience of ingestion and we naturally obsess about obtaining food while we are hungry. But reasoning with hunger doesn't work, etc etc. just some food for thought ;)

hosh 11y ago

Yep, there are different intelligences including emotional intelligence. It uses a different part of the mind. Emotions don't have logic or rationality, but they do have a observable, sometimes predictable dynamic. The processing of emotions are simple: experience it when it arises, allow it to do it's thing, and allow it to pass. There isn't a need to comment on it, though it is possible to gain some interesting insights by observing them.

unabst 11y ago
Not just observing. Expressing is also key and is actually what most of us spend our time doing. At a higher level philanthropy is tied to empathy, terrorism to fear, entertainment to fun, food to hunger, family to love, even sleep to sleepiness, and so on. Human civilization practically runs on emotion and barbaric it is, but then what would we be left with? Maybe it's control that we should be after...
- hosh 11y ago
  Observing is the foundational skill. Expression is secondary and not what it is cracked up to be. I've found that most of the time, people don't want to know what you are feeling. They want to know that you are feeling what they are feeling. The most crudest form of that is mirroring techniques, but that's actually not necessary and can be detrimental. It's a bandaid because the person is ignorant or unskilled in healing. There is a Sanskrit word called "dukkha" that doesn't have an easy English cognate. The closest would be "existential anguish", something that lies underneath every single experience. There is a particular way of opening yourself up to someone else's dukkha that I've found extremely effective. It's at that point, you forget about yourself ("this isn't about you"), and you drop all your psychological armoring, shielding, interpretations, etc. When I am mindful enough to remember to do that, people tend to walk away feeling better, even if I never say anything. Just listen. Being able to do that requires meditation, and you first start with observing emotions as they come and go. It does not end there. At some point, you directly experience the insight that your self is an illusion, that this existential misery underlies everything and you cannot escape, and that the ground of being is emptiness. It's at that point you can listen to the dukkha.

unabst 11y ago

Emotions are physical and are axiomatic to experience. It's hard to reason with something that doesn't talk back, hence most emotional states are altered via new experience and not reason -- such as a hug or a cookie. Emotion is a constant stream of something real that emerges from within. We proceed to express them with thought, dance, music, etc. Without them we would have very little to express or digest. Most thought and contemplation can be traced to an emotion that we had or that isn't going away. eg. Hunger begs for the experience of ingestion and we naturally obsess about obtaining food while we are hungry. But reasoning with hunger doesn't work, etc etc. just some food for thought ;)