Really, what does it look like?
Scientific research is finally verifying something I’ve suspected for years (see Science News, What do you see?). Namely, our need and fear(1) generally dictate what we see(2), even though our mind may believe otherwise. Our perception of ‘reality’ is essentially a subjective reflection of emotion, as this research helps show. However, the researchers see emotion a little differently. For example, the article says:
Whereas emotions describe complex states of mind, such as anger or happiness, affect refers to something much more basic. Psychologists describe it as a bodily response that is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable, a feeling of being tired in the morning or wound up at night. These responses are the ingredients for emotions, but they also serve as less complex feelings that people experience even when they think they feel “nothing”.
This looks like an example of wanting to have it both ways. For example, the words above, “pleasant (or not), comfortable (or not), stressed (or not), tired” (or not) all refer to common sensory experiences. Others include anger, empathy, anticipation, insecurity, fear, hunger, need, etc. Don’t these all fall under the category of emotion(3) in the broadest sense of the word? Meaning, none require a thinking “mind” to feel, as anyone who knows animals well enough can attest to.
Note: I suspect such parsing of the meaning stems from the age-old human desire to see itself unique and superior. Ergo “happiness” is a human feeling and so requires a “complex state of mind” to be felt. Dumb animals, lacking that, can’t possibly feel “happiness”. Come to think of it, this is a good example of how need and fear drive perception. In short, we fear seeing ourselves equal to animals, which spawns a need to see ourselves superior. I suppose you could say that our ’species-centric ego’ is at the wheel steering perception to fit the story we wish to hear.
In their view, “emotions describe complex states of mind, such as anger or happiness”. I’ve long thought of emotion as describing ‘feeling’ as opposed to ‘thinking’. Feeling originates in deep ancestral brain areas, e.g., feeling anger, content, anxious, sleepy, needy. Thinking (mind), on the other hand, originates in the surface and more recent cortex (of which humans are highly endowed). Saying that “emotions describe a complex state of mind” is like comparing apples and oranges. Sure, they are both fruit of the brain, blending together in our awareness and appearing to be the same thing. For example, thinking about earthquakes may provoke fear and stir up a need in me to live elsewhere. However, this lumping together of feeling and thinking obfuscates the view and hinders self understanding. On the other hand, regarding thinking and feeling as essentially separate issues can help put life in perspective. (Just think of this as ‘divide and conquer’!)
Emotion is the motivator of life’s actions, in humans, in dogs, in bats, etc., (and perhaps even virus and bacteria, if you replace the term ‘brain’ with ‘biology’). Those so called “complex states of mind” are more like ’shadows of emotion’; the result of emotions pushing and pulling thought this way and that. Think of awareness as a horse and cart; the cart is our thinking, and the horse is emotion (and perhaps intuition too). The horse pulls the cart. That is why to know yet to think that one does not know is best. One of the main themes in Yoga (i.e., Bhagavad Gita) is the quest to put a driver in that cart. That’s an inspiring ideal with but one hitch – the horse is a wild untamable beast and doesn’t heed drivers(4).
Psychologist apparently use the term affect to differentiate the so-called “complex states” from the “bodily responses”. I suppose this is a hold-over from the age-old mind versus body way of looking at life. The distinction is an illusion based upon an ignorance of underlying inter-connectivity (mysterious sameness). Although, it is perhaps not so much ignorance as a projection of how we would like to see ourselves. This mind-body illusion, for example, allows us to believe we can do anything if we set our mind to it, mind over body; in a nut shell, free-will. (Ironically, although not surprisingly, the effect psychologist are attempting to explore is affecting their way of seeing that effect.)
Feeling “pleasant or unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable” is integral to feeling fear, need, anger, content, etc.. The idea that “anger or happiness” are complex states of mind and somehow separate from feeling “pleasant or unpleasant” is nonsense. The angry dog, rat, bluejay, elephant, or baseball fan are all feeling uncomfortable and unpleasant. Their homeostasis, emotion wise, is out of whack. The anger response pushes the individual to somehow resolve that tension. When it is resolved, stress is relieved and “happiness” (contentment) returns.
Knowing that perception is a reflection of need and fear rather than what is actually there, is extremely helpful. The research (What do you see?) may be a welcome boost for those attempting to embrace this point of view. Little by little, research is headed toward what Buddhist and Taoist have always known: Emotion (desire, need, lust, fear, worry, insecurity, pleasure, pain, attraction, aversion) determine the ‘reality’ we see. To fix ‘reality’ one must return to the moment and deal with a thing while it is still nothing. Alas, as always, the simplest and most elegant solutions are also the most elusive and difficult to reach.
(1) I’m using the terms need and fear to convey, in the broadest possible sense, the primal biological driving forces of life. Meaning: Feeling need attracts us to what ostensibly facilitates survival; feeling fear repels us from what ostensibly impedes survival. Such need and fear are often subconscious, below the threshold of thought. They only evoke conscious thoughts once they pass some threshold.
(2) Broadly speaking, what we see also includes what we feel, hear and think (the mind’s eye). These perceptions mirror the biological base out of which they are experienced. One outcome of this is the naturally compelling illusion that the reality we ’see’ is objective.
(3) I’m using the term ‘emotion’ as broadly as possible to differentiate feeling from thinking. This includes all that indistinct and shadowy junk we feel consciously or otherwise that lies outside our ability to adequately describe (via words or names), or portray artistically (via color, notes, taste, etc.).
(4) Becoming one with ‘the beast’, rather than attempting to control it, is actually effective. Resistance only stirs the pot of emotion. How does one become one with the beast? Chapter 65 offers a helpful hint:
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