Comments on: Law 7: Emotion

by: Richard Sacco

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:24:41 +0000

Tom, the joy you have discovered is not “feeling less emotion”, but instead realizing that you are not your emotions. You’ve recognized that “You” are an independent entity from the emotion, and by observing your emotions as a separate (or even external) entity, their perceived dominance in relation to your “self” is greatly diminished. Being the observer of emotion, you have greater control over it and can appreciate greater meaning. You have found emotion simplicity, and that’s the good kind you want more of; otherwise you’re emotion-void and missing out on the nature of existence.

by: Richard Sacco

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:45:56 +0000

In our recent modern society, importance has been placed on the features and functionalities of objects, (the swiss-army knife concept) to do more, faster, and better, till we get things like a device in our hand that can make phone calls, take pictures, exchange text, surf the web, show video, etc. The other school of thought is to instead place importance on the emotion of an object used for a specified purpose. Agreed, the second is more “real” in regards to reaching truer personal fulfillment, but are they both not misplaced focus?

How about a paradigm shift of mindset, instead of evaluating how an object of this world will function for you, or what emotion it will give you, how about evaluating how you can function for that object and how you can give it your emotion. It is a self-centered and egotistical viewpoint that humans build and use the objects and energies of the planet for what they can do for us (in illusion of fulfillment), instead of living as peers among them. The objects we construct, be it a car or computer, and the benefits we gain are very temporary and essentially meaningless in the perspective of the earth.

by: karen

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:13:14 +0000

hello,John.

i don’t understand the relationship of emotion and simplicity.

by: Tom

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:38:32 +0000

My reaction was similar to that of Lil Peck. I agree with pretty much everything on this site except for this exhortation to feel more. My life has become far more simple and pleasant as I’ve trained myself to feel less. In fact, simply focusing on what I feel seems to naturally result in feeling less of whatever it is I’m observing.

by: Johan

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:27:10 +0000

Emotions are a huge part of our being, our experiences, and our thoughts, as are the elements of complexity and simplicity. So it is natural that many angles emerge when we are asked to relate emotion and simplicity. Hence we find ourselves with many answers including some which may seem to contradict. From a designers perspective though, we should at least agree that emotions compose a large part of any design that involves people. Wether an artist is preparing a poster of say a horror flick (negative emotions), or a love comedy (positive emotions), if a design is to have impact, that impact is more or less measured in “emotion”. And these woohs and aahs of design are usually what designers are valued for regardless of medium or technical content. Even when the lack of any emotion is the goal of a design, the “ahah” can come when one realizes how the design elegantly achieves its goals. And, the louder the “Ahaa” the better.

by: Xavier Faraudo "Lord Byron"

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:25:55 +0000

I work part-time as a rhapsode, saying other people’s poems out of memory alone (that above is, as you may imagine, my stage name). I work mainly for very reduced audiences, having them at a distance of, say, some five feet: really near. Emotions (and “emotion management”) is a must; actually, is what’s all about. I think that if I followed this rule in my work, people would get bored at the first minutes: their emotional threshold has been overflown. Give people too much emotions in too little time, and they’ll get “emotion-blind”. Build emotions with emotions, like a carefully planned structure of Lego bricks, and everything’ll go fine. (We can love AND hate something at the same time… two simple bricks make up an amazingly different, simple-yet-complex structure). But to me, there’s no use in having more bricks, if you have to plan some added structures just to use those extra bricks. If I want to put just one door in my Lego house, why is it better to have three instead of just the one I need?

To put it simpler: Mankind can get used to anything (so strong is our urge for survival). And if people is used to something in some degree, that something loses power in its effect in inverse ratio. (This goes for emotions, pain, hobbies…). The more (and more intense) emotions you put, the less impact you’ll be likely to have, at least once surpassed that emotional threshold (which is different from individual to individual). Then, everything gets plainly lost.

This can be rephrased as: When’d you shout, sing, and dance happily in the street, like a fool? When you find a dime? Or when you win $1.000.000 in a lottery? Should a coffee pot try to make us feel like if we’ve found the love of our life? It’s just a coffe pot. I think it’s better to have it as that little piece of everyday comfort which adds up to my well-being.

And even if we felt our coffe pot was our sweetheart for some time, once we found our real sweetheart, we’d come back to the coffee pot… and feel deceived. Positive then’d turn to negative, somehow like the children who sees the new toy isn’t like advertised on TV (that emotional effect was so intense, that regulations had to be put to prevent it in some countries!). Besides all that, there’s also the subject of emotional contrast, or dealing with negative and positive, which is also of the greatest importance: in the epics, the hero always begins in a negative and desperate situation, because that will increase the value of his foreseen positive outcome. (And feeling “all negative can be turned for good” is far more positive than, say, “always look at the bright side of life”.)

I tend so to carefully build the emotion level, starting with poems of “low emotional intensity”, then climbing to a climax, then down again (in shorter time than first stage.). If there is any sad poem to be said (talks about death, for instance), let’s say it first than one which is funny; & so on. Then, people can really feel emotions, and the “added time” gives them the chance to also feel they’ve felt something, just like sleep helps our memory fixing things up. That is, people do not also feel something, but afterwards they remember somehow that feeling: and that’s something equally important as feeling itself. (If they didn’t remember they felt something, they would never come back! That’s the diffence between an emotion and an emotional shock.)

I think that a world where everything, from mugs to phones, from cars to lighters, was filled to the brim with emotions (either positive or negative or mix or both), would be pretty stressing, a peace-of-mind killer. Much too big noise-to-signal ratio for my taste.

But, again… I’ve my own, individual, emotional threshold. Maybe I’m just too icky!

by: nancy

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:13:04 +0000

Emotions essentially boil down to pleasure and discomfort, and I believe emotions are actually physical responses which we then try to explain mentally (surge of adrenalin, relaxation response, changes in heartrate, etc.). In my experience, emotions are a physical reaction letting me know whether something is good or bad for me based on my current intentions, goals and beliefs. I may be aware of my deepest intentions or they may be completely unconscious. My beliefs may be self chosen, or they may be culturally conditioned or based on what I was told as a child. And they may be completely erroneous. If I was taught to hate myself, I may feel pleasure while practicing self-destructive behaviors. If I am unconscious of my self hatred, I may be bewildered by what seems to be my irrational behavior. When my conscious beliefs and my deepest intentions collide, what I *think* is good or bad for me may not match my *feelings* of what is good or bad for me, and then my behavior may not match what I *think* and say I feel. That makes life complicated, sometimes even shocking. My emotions (i.e., my physical reactions) are the best way to identify my deepest beliefs and intentions. If I change my intentions and beliefs, my emotional reactions will change as well. So–to me, emotions help me simplify my life tremendously (if I pay attention to them) by bringing unconscious beliefs and intentions into awareness so I can make conscious choices about my behavior. When I am fully aware of my intentions, life becomes very simple–I live with integrity.

by: tess

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:13:44 +0000

hi. have any examples been shared that actually illustrate how emotions are simpler? valuable? yes. but simpler? i guess some of you are saying that feeling positive, happy, etc. is simpler (though in some cases i think depression, anger and jealousy can be more simple than feeling positive - especially when something “wrong” has been done to us). also, i think a distinction should be made between emotions and behavior. aren’t emotions what we feel and behavior what we express. also, i think reactions do not exclusively include emotions (a part is behavior (what’s expressed), another emotional (internal) response)

by: George Hutchinson

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:14:52 +0000

Diane’s earlier question a person feeling something but expressing something else suggest that there is a location for emotions. It would seem to me that the biochemical process that we experience as emotion is local the inside of our heads/bodies while the stimulae that trigger these processes are in the environment all around us. We swim in an ocean of information and our response emanates and echoes all around us affecting others. What we experience is all our own both “good” and “bad” as context would have it.

by: Plato

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:58:26 +0000

Happy.