- “If I say, “I am grateful”, I could mean one of three things: that I am currently feeling grateful for something, that I am generally grateful for that thing, or that I am a grateful kind of person.”
The first instance is an emotional experience, the second i is an emotion and the third is a trait. - A trait is a disposition to have certain emotions and emotional experiences. Usually, traits are associated with the emotions they generate and are classified as either vices or virtues- example: greed(vice), patient (virtue). A trait though doesn’t have to be associated with an emotion but instead control of emotions.
- A trait could be temperamental – innate, or characteristics – can be changed. Character comes from a Greek word which means to imprint.
- traits can be inferred from behavior and vice versa. There’s a tendency to attribute people’s behavior to traits rather than taking situational factors into consideration. We do though take situational factors into consideration when judging our own actions. example: if I amlate for work, i can attribute thtat to fatigue, traffic, weather but if someone else is late for work, i attribute that to tardiness.
- Emotion vs mood: emotion is directed towards an object – a person, a thing, an experience. Mood, however, is not directed toward a particular object.
- The object or goal of beliefs is Truth. The object of emotion is evaluation: allowing us to justify making choices in accordance with our beliefs. Thus, beliefs and moods reflect a direction from the mind to the outer world. However, desires have the opposite direction-altering the world to fit with wants, they are stimulated from the outside world to within.
- Desire: altering reality so that it is in accord with what we want.
- impulse: sudden arise of desire
- compulse: persistent desire that is hard to resist.
- urge: desire that’s become urgent.
- wish: desire unlikely to happen.
- longings: sustainable desire for something hard to attain
- cravings: unfomortable yearning
- yearning: yearning with sadness
- drive: a desire from within.
- beliefs differ from emotions. beliefs are thoughts that are held to be true. sometimes we use I feel to mean I think, I believe – eg: I believe Bill was lying to me.
This introduces ambiguity as the emotions we felt about Bill lying were not uncovered. - Emotions and beliefs are closely connected: one could give rise to another and vice versa. We need emotions though to action on our beliefs. Apathy leads to indecision, which leads to inaction.
- Boredom: unpleasant state of unmet arousal. You’re not despondent. you’re aroused but cannot satisfy your arousal. Internal reasons include lack of imagination. External include lack of stimuli.
- Lack of self control can create boredom which is the case with employees who are closely watched and regulated.
- Boredom is uncomfortable because it makes us remember uncomfortable thoughts. represents the meaninglessness of life. This is why we try to mask our boredom with entertaining things – entertainment industry was 2trillion in 2016.
- People who find boredom overwhelming are prone to depression, and addictions.
- Yet, boredom has benefits: it puts us in touch with the nature of existence – the slow nature of existence. It makes us contemplate our priorities in life
- Append the word meditation to anything/activity you find boring. Try to meditate while going through such periods of time.
- Loneliness: an Unpleasant feeling that comes with lack of companionship with other humans.
Humans are built to be social animals, they seek connections with other humans. This can be why loneliness might feel uncomfortable: it encourages people to seek connections.
Loneliness can result from life events such as changing schools, immigration, getting married, or from psychological traits such as shyness, or from social problems such as bullying.
Loneliness has become more prevalent with the advent of industrial revolution, in part because society got organized around corporations and entities that demanded more productivity from employees and treated people as individuals – customers, investors, patients, healthcare providers, clients. Suddenly, human beings are finding themselves not because of distance or location, but they’re detached in cities full of other humans.
The internet has become a great comforter and seems to offer it all: news, connections, knowledge, relationship and even sex. Overtime though, it creates envy and longing, makes us confuse our priorities, entrenches superficial relationships at the cost of living ones. - Some people may choose to be alone, either because they find comfort in that lifestyle or because they have given up on developing meaningful connections with people. On the other hand, other people might be lonely not by choice. The degree of loneliness felt depends on the difference between the goals that one sets for themselves in terms of the social connections they want to develop, and how much of those connections they have. Timon of Athens story tells us that he was very happy when he was surrounded by friends that he lavished with money – not expecting anything in return so that they remain with him. As soon as runs out of money, they abandoned him. Alone, he ends up finding a treasure of gold, and when his friends came piling back, he rejected them all and was happy to live alone. Loneliness then is not an objective state of affairs as a subjective state of mind.
Loneliness is not the experience of lacking but the experience of living, Loneliness is part and parcel of the human condition.
Loneliness then stems from the manifestation of conflict between our desire for meaning and the absence of meaning in the universe. This explains why people with a strong sense of meaning and purpose, or simply with a strong narrative enjoy solitude.
Solitude gives us the opportunity to connect with our inner selves, solve problems and think creatively. It affords us the opportunity to tune the humdrum of everyday living, to think for ourselves and not to parrot culture and society as Nietzsche says: “I go into solitude so as not to drink ut of everybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many I do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul.
solitude and attachment are compatible as the highest task for lover is to guard each other’s solitude.
This suggests that solitude stems from, as well as promotes, a state of maturity and inner richness. - Shame and guilt result from self-assessment while humiliation embarrassment results from external assessments.
- Embarrassment is a feeling of discomfort experienced when an aspect of our lives is exposed to others and that threatens our image that they have of us. This doesn’t mean that it is morally wrong.
- Shame is the feeling we get when we have done something that is morally wrong. Shame is associated with societal and cultural norms while guilt is associated with one’s own standards of morality.
- Shame and guilt go hand in hand, so for example, if you hit someone you feel guilty about the situation and you also feel bad about yourself (shame). However, shame and guilt are different: shame stems from a conflict with our self image and the needs of our ego. High levels of shame could result in poor psychological functioning and can lead to conditions such as narcissism which is a defence against shame.
Faced with similar circumstances, people with high self-esteem tend to feel guilt rather than shame and are more likely to take corrective action. - Pride: positively validating our own self-worth. Can be of two types: positive which builds our self-confidence and enables us to think creatively without hinderances. There’s also the negative type which is akin to hubris and arrogance. Vanity is similar to pride but refers to a heightened sense of self in the eyes of others.
- Desire: “Try for just one moment to stem your stream of desires. You cannot. Such is the paradox of desire: that even the desire to stop desiring is in itself a desire. This brings to mind the joke about the Zen student who goes to a temple and asks how long it will take him to gain student who goes to a temple and asks how long it will take him to gain enlightenment if he joins the temple. “Ten years,” replies the Zen master. “Well, how about if I work really hard and double my effort?” “Twenty years.” To get round the paradox of desire, many Eastern spiritual masters speak of the cessation of desire, or ‘enlightenment’, not as the culmination of an intentional process but as a mere accident. Spiritual practice, they maintain, does not invariably lead to the cessation of desire but merely makes us more ‘accident-prone’.”
“The accumulation of houses, cars, and other riches robs us of our time and tranquillity, both in their acquiring and in their keeping. Fame is at least as compromising and inconvenient as it is pleasurable, and can quickly turn into infamy. We need not shun fame and riches, but neither should we set out for them or invest ourselves in them.
As soon as a desire is satisfied, we stop taking pleasure in its object and turn our attention to formulating and meeting other desires. This is just the problem. Our desires evolved ‘merely’ to promote our survival and reproduction, not to make us happy or satisfied, to ennoble us, or to give our life any meaning beyond their fulfillment. Nor are they adapted to modern life. Today, survival is no longer our most pressing concern, and, with seven billion people thronging our poor planet, reproduction can seem almost irresponsible. Yet here we are, bonded to our ancestral desires like slaves to their master. Our intellect, in which we have developed a quasi-religious faith, evolved to help us pursue the desirable and avoid the undesirable. It did not evolve to oppose our desires, still less to transcend them. Though we like to pretend otherwise, our intellect is subservient to our desires.Although able to perceive, judge, and reason, our intellect is neither designed nor equipped to pierce through the veil of mâyâ (‘ illusion’) and apprehend the true nature of reality. Thus, there is nothing in us that is able to oppose the demands of will, which compels us into a life of inevitable frustration, strife, and pain.
In many cases, we simply do not know what we want, and settle with what seems easiest or most fitting. But even when we are sure of what we want, we cannot be sure that it will be good or better for us.In many cases, we simply do not know what we want, and settle with what seems easiest or most fitting. But even when we are sure of what we want, we cannot be sure that it will be good or better for us. A young man may dream of studying medicine at Oxford even if realizing his dream would mean getting hit by a bus in three years’ time, or never realizing his far greater potential as a novelist. We should never feel bitter when our desires are frustrated because we can never be sure that what we wanted would have been good or best for us— and judging by the poor quality of our lives, we are obviously very bad at wanting. - Ambition:
Desire to differentiate oneself from others and willing to fork the effort to achieve that.
Ambitious people are sensitive to resistance and failure, and experience an almost constant sense of dissatisfaction – their task is never finished.
Ambition can act like the dangled carrot that goads the donkey to pull the cart. Ambition pushes people to become more successful on average in terms of career and income and despite the taxing aspect of it, it leads to more satisfaction in life overall.
Ambition is a function of parental role modeling, intelligence, fear, courage, past accomplishments, feelings of inferiority and superiority, and the instinctual drive for sex and life. - Anger:
Arises as a response to a threat and aims to diffuse it. Reaction to an unpleasant situation
resentment: usually internalized and is longer term when compared to Anger. arises from feelings of injustice.
contempt: usually internalized and is combined with a feel of
irritability: the propensity to anger and annoyance.
When exercised judiciously, anger can help drive action, improve bargaining and negotiating power, create more sympathy, signal higher social status, help compete for power, and enforces agreements.
The uncontrolled version of anger – rage, is unprocessed, uncontrolled, and unjustified.
This does not mean that anger is not justified in other cases, as a display of controlled anger— even if undeserved— can still serve a benevolent strategic purpose, as when we ‘get angry’ at a child for the benefit of shaping his character. But if all that is ever required is a strategic display of anger, then true anger that involves real pain is entirely superfluous, its presence serving only to betray a certain lack of understanding. - Patience:
Quality of calmness and endurance – resisting the urge to act in a certain way. Embodies many virtues: humility, strength, adaptability, self-control, generosity.
Impatience and frustration give rise to procrastination since to put off a task means delaying the effort and frustration that goes with completing it.
People are less patient than ever before in a society that rewards materialism and individualism. Technology is rising expectations of getting things done quickly – half of the people gave up on watching a video after 10 seconds passed without the video playing. We are becoming restless – needing an activity or something to occupy our mind.
Patience can be viewed as a decision-making problem: eat up all the grains now or plant them so they multiply later. Patience does not just imply tolerance and waiting, it also needs to be methodical and part of a plan just like growing a garden is: waiting isn’t the only thing that needs to happen.
Patience implies power, makes us more present in the moment and allow us to achieve things not possible without it. - Depression:
Traditional societies view a person state of unhappiness as an opportunity for that individual to address underlying problems that is resulting in the person feeling unhappy. In western societies and as people are encouraged to talk about depression, there are more cases of it there.
The concept of depression as a mental disorder may be useful for the more severe and intractable cases, but for mild and short-lived cases, they can be interpreted as a result of life circumstances, human nature, and human condition.
Another interpretation of the increased prevalence of depression has to do with the way life is in modern societies: highly individualistic with no regards to traditional values focused on the group rather than the self. This leaves individuals feeling far removed, lonenly even and especially among the multitudes. What exacerbates this problem is that by treating such feelings as a mental disorder requiring treatment, society is sending the message that the problem is the individual and not the society itself.
All of that is not to say that the concept of depression is bogus, but rather to say that the definition of depression has been over-extended. This over-extension has occurred as a result of the way depression is diagnosed: rather than the diagnosis be based on pathology, it is based on symptoms and manifestations that the physician determines to be present.
However, the fact that we feel depressed – and the underlying genes that may facilitate that, can serve a beneficial purpose in our lives: the solitude that comes with depression can be our opportunity to remove ourselves from situations which cause us more harm, re-think what matters in our lives, and focus on the holistic picture. It removes us from the daily hustle to be cognizant of our mortality and freedom, and how to best use our freedom in the confines of our inevitable mortality.
Depression could also be viewed as a result of people not satisfied with the status quo, and wanting to better their own lives and others. As a result, they try so hard to achieve that and are frustrated at the lack of their success. To attribute this situation to a chemical imbalance in their brain that they need to pop pills for is to do them a great disservice and deprive them of the opportunity to reach their highest potential. - Fear and Anxiety:
Anxiety is the set of physiological and psychological symptoms brought about by the apprehension felt with what is perceived to be a high-stake and important situation.
Fear is similar to anxiety except that the fear is perceived to be more concrete, present or immediate.
The purpose of anxiety and fear is to avoid physical injury or death. These could be beneficial outcomes of anxiety or fear. However, anxiety and fear can be maladaptive and has a negative impact on our social relationships.
Some of the phobias we encounter in our lives are a form of anxiety: fear of heights, of enclosed spaces, of blood, etc.
As with specific phobias, the ulterior fear in panic disorder is of death or dying. Recognizing the immortality of our lives will free us up to take on challenges with decreased anxiety and fear. It is interesting that some philosophers consider the purpose of life is to prep for death. - Empathy:
The ability to see someone else’s situation from their perspective, and the ability to share their emotions.
Empathy does not mean the ability to put yourself in someone else’s situation, but rather to imagine what it would be like to be that person, to experience the situation as if you are that person. To empathize with someone, you need to have some knowledge of who he is and what he is trying to do.
Pity is a feeling of discomfort associated with watching a sentient being in a distressed situation.
Sympathy: is a feeling of care and concern towards someone accompanied by an acknowledgment of their difficult situation and the desire to see them do better. However, it doesn’t involve shared distress as empathy does.
Compassion is more engaged than empathy and it involves not only sharing the emotions of that person but also the desire to alleviate that suffering.
To feel empathy is innate in us. At the age of 4, we start developing the ability to recognize that people think differently, have different perspectives, and might see the same situation differently from us.
The ability to empathize can be traced to the mirror neurons, which are excited when we engage in actions and are most engaged when our actions match those of others around us.
Empathy has been selected for throughout evolution. It allowed us to care for children and others in our community. However, empathy can make us partial towards a situation by having us place someone’s interests ahead of others and even above justice and law. Numerous or repeated demands on our empathy can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. Fortunately, the exercise of empathy under less pressured circumstances is often rewarding and revitalizing. - Altruism:
Acting- selflessly, out of concern for others.
Altruism could have different motivations: compassion is one of its main drivers. Fear being another – ego defence.
Altruism has its benefits: makes us feel good about the role we play in society – helpers’ high, and people who are important to us. Long term, it is associated with better mental health and greater longevity.
At the social level, Altruism strengthens the fabric of social relations and bonds, and signals resources availability and so of mating and partnering potential.
In light of these benefits, thinkers contend that there can be no such thing as a genuine altruistic act, for that a person is doing it either out of fear of reprisal, wanting to feel good, to go to heaven, or feeling pride and satisfaction. However, even though that there can be no altruistic act that is completely free of self-interest, an altruistic act should not be written off as selfish simply because it has an unavoidable element of self-interest. The act can still be counted as altruistic if the “selfish” element is incidental or secondary or undetermning. - Friendship:
For two to be friends, it is necessary that they bear good will towards each other, wish each other well without that escaping their notice. A person might bear good will towards another for three reasons: that he is good – virtue, that he is useful and that he is pleasant. Although benefit and pleasantness are two motivations for friendships, the third – friendship based on virtue, is longer lasting and deeper because it is based on something enduring – goodness.
The number of people with whom we could have genuine friendships can only be a handful, because to develop such friendship, friends need to spend exclusive time together.
Frienship is hard to define because it is not a thing in and of itself but rather a process of becoming. True friends seek together to live truer, fuller lives by relating to each other authentically and by teaching each other about the limitations of their beliefs and the defects in their character. It is the love the seeks to know. - Love:
Love that generates friendship is the highest form of love, where the two would have a relationship that seeks to help them understand each other deeply and the world around them.
The highest form of life is one in which there is nurturing relationships, and where reason has a place. - Self-esteem:
Self-esteem is “i am”. Self-confidence is “I have”. Pride is “I did”
Self-esteem is the belief in one’s worthiness.
Courage is the ability to proceed in situations even when they’re not fully known to us. Confidence is proceeding when you have knowledge of the situation.
Self-esteem is nurtured when we live up to our goals and dreams, when we fail after having given our all, when we stand up to ourselves and suffer the consequences, when we live according to our values – even if they don’t conform to our parents’ or to society’s, when we grow and learn from our failures. It doesn’t stem from the size of our paycheque, the house we live in, what people think of us.
The concept of self-esteem in the west is associated with worthiness while in the west it is associated with success. Both approaches have their drawbacks for that success and worthiness are not entirely controlled by us.
Self-esteem is bred when we achieve success, and success adds to our self-esteem. It is possible to have high self-esteem in certain life disciplines but not others. - Ecstacy:
Intense positive feeling, especially with an abstract or expansive quality. Can be induced by love, music, art, orgasm, exercise, beauty and triump.
Ecstacy literally means “to be or stand outside oneself’. It is a trance-like state in which consciousness of an object is so heightened that the subject dissolves or merges into the object. Einstein called it “the finest emotion of which we are capable”, “The germ of all art and true science”.
A defining feature of ecstacy is the dissolution of boundaries, with the ego merging into all of being. While letting go of the ego can threaten the life that we have built and even the person that we have become, it can also free us from our modern narrowness and neediness and deliver us into a world that is brighter and richer. - Ray tells a story of him witnessing a widlebeest being killed and eaten by a pack of hyenas. Initially, he thinks that this is a bad thing that should not have happened. He later pauses to think this further and wonder what would happen if the wildebeest was not killed and eaten?
Pondering 1st, 2nd and 3rd order consquences help us better understand the value of something rather than us focusing on how it affects us. Nature has its way of optimizing for the whole in ways that man has never perfected yet.
This mindset has made Ray be reminded to assume that he’s wrong whenever he sees something in nature that he thinks is wrong. It helps him 1) understand what is right and what is wrong 2) what his purpose in life is 3) focus on what he should do when faced with life’s important choices. - Most people call something bad if it’s bad for them or people they empathize with, ignoring the greater good. This kind of thinking could also extend to groups: like-minded groups could clash with other like-minded groups when both groups evaluate good and bad based on what the impact it has them.
while it is fair to like or dislike something based on the impact it has on us, it is not fair to label it as bad or good just because of the way it makes us feel. This leads to the following general rule:
To be good, something needs to operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole. That is what is most rewarded.
Tarek Naim's Blog 