When I was a kid I had two imaginary friends, Hudabatcher, and Hanelbug. Recently, Hudabatcher showed back up, sort of, and he is a blue porcupine who forces me to debate ideas in my brain. Hudabatcher is right, I might be avoiding doing what my shrink wants me to do, and I’m dodging my emotions by analyzing the word or the concept of emotion.
We use the words emotion and feeling as synonyms, but if you think words matter, then it is important for me to know exactly, (or exactly enough) what the term emotion means.
In my Googles I found out that Darwin actually wrote about emotion entitled: The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal. If evolution is true (in concept not necessarily in detail) then emotion has something to do with survival for human beings. That would mean emotions are important right?
Next, I Googled the derivation of the word emotion:
Emotion is derived from the Latin word emovere. The E part of emovere means OUT as in our word Exit. The movere part of the word connected some way to our word MOVE. Hell, it has move right in it. The movere also has a connection to our word MOTIVATION.
So, by looking at the derivation of the word emotion we find that it indicates motivation to move out. But to move out what? Feelings of course. The word emotion means that the emote-er has taking feelings on the inside and moved them out to the outside. Emotion mean conveying thoughts attached to feelings so others can see it, That’s what we mean by emotional expressions.
But now I wonder, could emotions exist without words? I mean, if thoughts cause feelings, and if feelings expressed become emotions then there is a link between words and emotions.
But we know emotions do exist apart from words. Babies can be scared and scared is an emotion and most of the babies I know have very limited vocabularies. I also remember Helen Keller was deaf and blind from babyhood, and Helen Keller clearly was having feelings and expressing emotions. Of course even deaf and blind, Ms Keller did have sensations. She could feel things (touch , temperature and vibration.) Perhaps she had a language made up of sensations rather than words.
You know, another derivation of that movere is also motivation. Without emotion we have no motivation to do anything. Emotions cause us to move toward pleasurable stuff and away from un-pleasurable stuff. If I stay unemotional, if I remain all closed off, numb then I won’t move away from hurtful stuff and toward pleasurable stuff. I’ll be too passive to take another breath.
On thing Ms. B. (my shrink) has asked me to do is find adjectives that describe my emotions when various things happened to me. Ms B, keeps delving into my childhood and asking me to use adjectives to describe how I was feeling when this happened or that happened. Maybe she doesn’t know me well enough to know that I don’t have any pleasant memories of childhood. In this case, I guess emotion was motivating me to move away from feelings, of tucking them down inside me. But I’m nearing 60 years of age and my feelings have been in my mental dungeon so long they are all emaciated and nearly unrecognizable to me. I couldn’t pick out an single emotion in a line up.
So I’m pardoning my emotions. I’m releasing my adjectives, one by one. Each one needs to shower, shave, and soak up a little sun, but here are a few parolees:
dispirited bitter afraid worried worthless uneasy surprised puzzled hopeful relief awed eager distressed cautious resolved somber ardent helpless hopeless disappointed cheated nervous panicky cynical
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