Emotions

Now that you’ve started making some behavioral changes, you may have noticed that you’ve been set upon by a ruthless siege of emotions. The most important thing to keep in mind about all emotions in general is 

THEY SUUUUUUUUCK 

Emotions are unwanted pests, like creepy crawlies that infest your home and poop on all your eating surfaces. Our ultimate goal is total extermination, but in order to achieve a definitive victory, we need to know more about the enemy. 

Put on your Orkin man hat for a second. (I’m not super thrilled about the idea of googling a bunch of stuff about bugs, so I’m just going to make a bunch of assumptions about how professionals deal with a bug problem.) First, you wouldn’t address an ant problem the same as a cockroach infestation, so step one would be identifying the intruder. Once you know the “what”, you need to determine the “why”. Did the weather turn cold and force the bugs to seek warmth in the cracks of your poorly constructed walls? Are you a huge slob who leaves plates encrusted with food particles in front of an open window for weeks at a time? Do you have a roommate who is intentionally releasing bugs into your home as a passive aggressive way to get you to move out? With all this information you can tailor a much more effective plan of attack.

Or you could just set the whole house on fire and hope your insurance company pays out for spider-induced arson. 

You might think that because you’ve lived with emotions your entire life, you already know everything about them. Well,  I think I know a lot about bowel movements, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to defer to people who have dedicated their lives to studying the minutia of the gastrointestinal system when there seems to be a problem with my (literal) shit. 

And, I’m happy to remind you ad nauseam, there’s a problem with your (metaphorical) shit. 

So lets get into the mind of our opponent and examine the “what” and “why” of emotions. 

Identifying Emotions

Universal Emotions

Can you remember anything from your kindergarten art class besides the sweet, sweet smell of those deliciously toxic scented markers? If any brain cells survived your frenzied huffing sessions, they might recall some basic color theory. There are three primary colors—red, blue, yellow—that you mix to make secondary colors—purple, green, orange—that then mix to make more colors and so on and so forth. And mixing all the colors gives you get that lovely shade of brown that is heavily featured in the majority of the artwork you brought home to your poor mother.   

Any of that coming back to you? 

Well, that’s pretty much what emotions are like. All the complex and nuanced feelings you experience throughout your life are really just a blend of the same building block emotions that everyone is born with. 

You might feel taco, and your friend feels burrito, but at the end of the day you both are just feeling a slightly different version of the same meat, lettuce, and cheese combo. 

As much as I would like to continue to imagine emotions as various Mexican cuisine ingredients, I’m going to get super confused, super quick. And super duper hungry. So I guess we should refer to them by their actual names. 

And I’ll warn my boyfriend that I’m going to be a cranky motherfucker if I don’t get tacos tonight. 

The science people who do the learnings about these things have decreed there are only six universal emotions. These emotions are... 

*drum roll please*

These basic emotions can be understood across all cultures, regardless of environment or language, due to our innate understanding of each associated facial feature. My drawings were so good you probably didn’t even need me to write out each emotion, unless you’re still operating at the same comprehension level of a five-month-old. 

Which might still be giving you too much credit.

Zing.

This might seem like a very simplistic breakdown considering how advanced our brains are, but go into the comment section of any article about abortion or gun control and you’ll realize that, as a species, our minds aren’t actually all that complex. But remember three minutes ago, how I said emotions are like art or food? Well, some people can have elaborate emotional experiences with nuances matching the sophistication of a Rembrandt masterpiece, or the delicacies of the late, great Anthony Bourdain. Other people can only process emotions with the same complexity of a creepy GWB bathtub painting, or Guy Fieri’s diarrhea-inducing “cuisine”. But before you start thinking that you’d rather be a Beethoven than a Nickleback, the classical genius suffered from frequent diarrhea, likely linked to syphilis, and my stale cliche of terrible musicians are literally the best-selling group in the U.S. as I’m writing this, so which one sounds more appealing now? 

I know, I cried a little for our country when I read that too. But back to emotions. 

Did you notice that four out of the six emotions are considered "negative" emotions?  Actually, depending on the situation, "surprise" is kinda the “and sometimes Y “of the list, so I’m going to call it a solid 75% negative. This revelation could lead one to deduce that, be it evolution or intelligent design (but definitely evolution), we are built to be unhappy. And it did. The one is me. I deduced it.

That’s good news! If misery is our intended natural state, once you start reconnecting with your biological roots, it should require much less work to maintain your givingupedness. Inertia, here we come!

Some people consider “Contempt” to be a seventh universal emotion, but many argue that it simply a combination of disgust and anger. The pictures associated with that emotion looked more like constipation to me, which honestly is probably a more relatable emotion. Other trouble makers are questioning the universal emotion theory altogether, but I’m trying to keep this shit simple so poo poo on them. 

I only bring these things up to acknowledge that I’m aware of the different viewpoints being argued, but I have zero interest in turning this into a research paper on the competing theories on mammalian emotional comprehension. You have my permission to ridicule me if my one paragraphs about the six emotions has been proven wildly inaccurate by the time you’re reading this, since I imagine my work will timeless and revered for centuries to come.

But I still won’t care. 

I gave up on this section already.

Primary/Secondary Emotions

I kinda forgot about the concept of primary and secondary emotions when I made my color theory comparison earlier, and that doesn’t actually line up within the analogy, but it worked so well in that instance, so I’d hate to change it now. Or, more realistically, I just don’t want to do the work to change it. Honestly though, artists came up with their concept of primary and secondary colors way before the word psychology was even documented, so let’s blame whoever didn’t know their art history for making it confusing. 

Just don’t blame me. 

Primary Emotion

Departing from our color correlation, primary emotions are not just the universal emotions. Chances are your primary emotion is one of the universal emotions, however that doesn’t mean that if you are feeling a universal emotion it is necessarily your primary emotion. Think: all apples are fruit, but not all fruit are apples. 

*Primary emotions are not synonymous with universal emotions. 

I wonder how many times I can say the words “primary emotion” before actually explaining what it is. I could keep telling you all the things it isn’t and see if you eventually figure it out on your own. Primary emotions are usually not your initial, short term reaction to an event. Primary emotions are typically not influenced by temporary conditions, such as the weather or the status of your yeast infection. Primary emotions are generally not small appliances used for increasing the warmth and crispiness of bread. Does that clear things up for you? I might’ve confused myself too, so I’ll give you a pass if you’re have trouble. But just this one time. Unless I forget that I already gave you your one pass and accidentally give you another. I’m not keeping track of your passes. 

Lets work backwards from the information I did manage to give you. Rather than being the intense, impulsive feelings that arise in direct response to a stimulus, like an encounter or a thought, the primary emotion is deeply rooted to a much broader concept that can be triggered by any number of individual events. It’s like a permeating theme of your personality.   

A primary emotion is also pretty fixed, regardless of your current mood. It is tied to an overarching idea that exists no matter how much sleep you got the night before, how intense your allergies are acting up, or how much poop is in your underwear because you shouldn’t have trusted a fart after eating six roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s. 

The one way primary emotions are similar to all emotions is that they are immaterial, and therefore can not act as a physical toaster.  

Secondary Emotion

Secondary emotions are the opposite. 

I think an example might help.

Secondary emotions are the feelings that are communicated to others by our reactions. The further these deviate from our primary emotion, the greater chance for emotional suffering. That’s where we want to live. 

So why does this matter? 

Function of Emotions

If you caught on to my general sentiment regarding emotions, or read the table of contents revealing there is an entire chapter dedicated to avoiding emotions, then you may wonder why were we burdened with them in the first place. Some people might say its god’s punishment for touching yourself at night. I’d say anyone who cares that much about what you do in the privacy of your own pants is a weirdo and their philosophies should be heavily scrutinized. I’d also say that the sole reason emotions exist is so that I could one day teach people how to suppress them.

Experts wouldn’t say any of those things. But what do the experts know? I’ll tell you a bastardized version of what they know, because that’s what I know.   

Adaptive Function

Look, our brains are lazy. I feel like a broken record explaining how our minds use our experiences to create shortcuts in order to avoid having to process a response every time it encounters a familiar stimuli, because this is essentially the same idea. The difference is, emotions act as pre-installed programs in all human hardware, regardless of individual experiences. These six emotions have proven essential to the survival and growth of our species on a biological level, thus integrating themselves into our evolutionary path. 

Although we often associate emotions with thoughts, they actually have a very strong physical effect on the body. Whether we can feel it or not, emotions trigger the activation and/or deactivation of various systems in our bodies to prepare us to respond to a stimulus. Probably the most common example is the fight or flight response associated with fear. Your heart races to pump more blood to your muscles, your pupils dilate to better take in your surroundings, and your bowels void themselves because you’re a disgusting animal.

Each emotion produces physiological responses that either encourage or dissuade behaviors that affected the proliferation of the human race, but they bodily reactions only set us up to take action, they do not necessarily determine if we do. 

Motivational Function

Emotions make us feel stuff. (Did I just blow your mind?) The addition or subtraction of an emotion from our current state causes a shift in sensations that we will then either seek to replicate or avoid through future behavior. That’s a convoluted way of saying we do things to either experience or avoid certain emotions.

You probably don’t need me to point out that people usually try to experience the “good” emotions more than the “bad” ones, but I will anyway. That’s four seconds of your life you won’t get back.

Essentially, this means emotions are like drugs. You get a little injection of happiness and, just like that, your life becomes a quest to recreate that rush. Similarly, once disgust drips it’s hot, sticky garbage juice on your open-toed sandals, there will be no limit to the lengths you will go to avoid feeling that putrid ooze on your personage again.

Social Function

Ever notice that Ted Cruz’s face gives you the feeling that should probably wash your hands, then ensure that your windows and doors are securely locked? No? Go do a quick image search, then tell me you don’t want to take a hot shower and check on your grandma.

Although we typically associate emotions with psychology, they are actually highly physiological, and each emotion has specific signals that we display and recognize subconsciously when interacting with others. Over 90% of human communication is done through non-verbal cues that get translated based on our innate understanding of the basic emotions. Our brains are constantly running a subconscious scan of facial expressions, vocal tones, and body postures to gather information about people before they say a single word.

It’s like the Facebook app on your phone, but with less illicit data sharing. 

The fundamental reason we developed this ability is to rapidly determine trustworthiness. As cavemen we used it to determine friend or foe, as babies we needed to learn basic social communication without speech, and as modern adults we are connected to over 7 billion people and ain’t nobody got time to have a heart-to-heart with all of them. 

When our verbals and nonverbals line up, we are able to communicate thoughts, feelings, and needs more effectively with others. Other people will also relate to you and trust you much more easily when they can quickly confirm that the emotional experience you are telegraphing is true to the behaviors you are exhibiting. 

When the cues don’t match up, however, people write essays about how you’re probably the Zodiac Killer. This means there’s a scientific reason Ted Cruz makes us as uneasy as toy clowns and text messages saying “we need to talk”. The small nuance of downturned eyebrows paired with a smile is enough to trigger our internal alarm to warn us that something isn’t right. Go back to my flawless representation. Downturned eyebrows say someone is sad, but a smile means they are happy. So what is going on with Teddy? What is he trying to say to me?? Is there a deep, permeating despair that he can’t contain, no matter how hard he smiles? Is he actually an alien who doesn’t understand how faces are supposed to look? STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!

Communication errors don’t have to be the result of mismatched cues, however. If we express a secondary emotion instead of our primary one, we won’t get our actual needs met.