From: Gerardus gerardus@goodnet.com
Date: Thu Oct 24 15:34:22 PDT 1996
Where do our emotions come from?
How did we get them?
Through what kind of experiences must we have gone through in order to get them?
Naturally these three questions are really one question.
Like: From what do our emotions originate?
Firstly, let's look at an assumption in the question:
that one must do something to acquire emotions, as though they are something
that I don't normally have but went out and got from somewhere.
Feelings come with the body.
There is nothing you need to do to get them if you have a body that functions
according to its specs.
They're the way that we experience certain chemicals (manufactured primarily
but not exclusively by the ductless glands) when they're released into the
blood.
I understand that you may be referring to the
technical term which calls anger, fear, guilt, insecurity and their myriad
combinations and degrees emotions: and everything that is not made up of these
four experiences feelings.
But, let's investigate feelings and emotions, anyway.
The creation, by the action of
Universal Law,
is always in motion towards balance.
That very motion towards balance unbalances it, and necessitates motion
towards balance; which unbalances it, and necessitates ...
This gives us the ability to live in a dynamic, moving creation without
everything falling apart: instead of a perfectly balanced, but static and
dead, place.
Everything is always close enough to being in a state of balance that things
can function and move without being destroyed by that very motion; but things
are never actually in balance, or that would be the end of motion.
In living beings this action of Universal Law is what
we call adapting: as our environment changes in its never-ending motion towards
balance, we must also change to remain in balance with that environment.
This constant changing to remain almost in balance with the environment is
technically called adapting: the particular change required to bring about
temporary balance is called an adaptation.
The way this works is quite interesting.
I am aware of the environment, which includes me, of course.
Everything that happens, both inner and outer, gets judged.
This judgement produces a feeling.
If I judge this experience as good for me, the feeling is quite enjoyable.
If I just this experience as bad for me, the feeling is some degree of
emergency and the need to change or escape from what is happening.
This feeling is known to the biological or living
aspect of the human being which we call X.
X then brings about the action of Universal Law and provides a physical
adaptation to bring the whole into balance with its environment.
If what was reported was that this is not good for me, X attempts to get rid
of it as part of that adaptation.
Otherwise, X attempts to keep it around and keep the whole in balance to the
environment.
True emergencies only exist when the whole is being or
is about to be damaged somehow.
Yet we report emergency situations all the time that are not really damaging.
When someone disapproves of me or something that I've done, I'm not damaged by
that (unless they are going to get physically violent about it).
Yet most of us judge this experience as bad and report it as an emergency.
This gives rise to emotions: something we were not
designed to experience.
We may become afraid that we will never be liked.
We may become angry that someone else feels justified in judging us.
We may feel insecure, because we can't seem to find a way to not be judged.
We may feel guilty for having done it in the first place.
This is just an example.
If the reader wouldn't react this way to this example, they may look at their
own life to find their own examples: what experiences they judge as bad for
them when they are afraid, angry, guilty and insecure.
Yet there is no emergency here, short of the threat of
physical violence.
So the emotion that I am experiencing is based on an illusion.
And all of this is from judging an experience as bad for me because I find it
unpleasant to deal with.
This is not to say that judging is not the proper
thing to do.
In fact, it is my job to judge.
Sometimes it's called discrimination to seperate it from the other kind of
judging that we also indulge in.
This judging simply says: is this good for me, is it to my advantage?
It does not judge anyone else or for anyone else.
Just because something is not good for me, or is not to my advantage: that
says nothing about whether it is good for you, does it?
We are all different.
It is only for me that I judge.
When we have the ideal that life should always be
comfortable and pleasant, we judge many events as bad for me that are simply
unpleasant.
It is not bad for me to be a little uncomfortable.
It is not bad for me to go through an unpleasant experience.
I might prefer not to: but it isn't going to harm me.
One who saw this would no longer be afraid or angry or
feel guilt or insecure.
They would simply look at certain events as unpleasant chores (to them), and
get them done so they could move on to experiences more pleasant (to them).
There would be no judgement that an unpleasant chore is bad for me, so the
only time an emergency situation would be reported to X would be when the life
or welfare of the body was endangered.
Thus, the short answer to your question is that we
experience emotions when we judge an experience as bad just because it is
uncomfortable or unpleasant.
Our biology cannot distinguish between our judgement of this as bad just
because I don't like it and a judgement of this as bad because it is
life-threatening.
So we treat all unpleasant experiences as if they were life-threatening and
attempt to respond with violence -- by becoming afraid or angry or guilty or
insecure -- as a way to adapt to the situation and change it info something
pleasant.
Each of these emotions is a way to control life so that it will always be
pleasant.
We believe that if we are afraid we will be clever and
avoid unpleasantness.
We waste considerable time attempting to plan our lives so that all unpleasant
experiences will be bypassed, and consider this foolish worrying about nothing
to be useful.
We believe that if we become threatening enough with
our anger then you will stop making my life unpleasant.
We believe that if we feel guilty enough we will stop
doing things that make life unpleasant.
Do this long enough, and you'll know that it doesn't
work: but you don't know what else to do, so you keep on doing it.
Thus is born insecurity.
I don't know what to do except what doesn't work, so I feel insecure and
somewhat inferior because I don't really know how to keep life pleasant and
comfortable all the time.
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Copyright © 1995, 1996 by inX.
Compiled July 18, 1996.
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Science of Man's Conscious Self-Evolution