Why Do We Need so Many Emotions?

Ananda hum - I am bliss.

Why should we actually feel glad? Why isn’t joy or happiness enough? Why do we also need gladness? I mean why are there so many different emotions?

The closest way I can describe how the answer to that question feels to me is that there are certain recipes. You know, for every situation in life you need a recipe to solve the problem and to move on. Without the recipe you are stuck.

Logically, if your only emotions are sad, glad, and mad (+horny/hungry - thx Cris for that quote) that mix of ingredients highly limits your ability to cook anything else than pasta with pesto. Maybe parmesan on top.

That is the level of variety a lot of or maybe most or even almost everyone on this planet has to its disposal to solve emotional problems. And the results we see are clear: thousands die in Ukraine because a grumpy, mistrustful caricature of a dictator has unsolved daddy issues. We’d rather risk an economic meltdown on a global scale that would cost millions of jobs instead of just agreeing on a budget for a government because we have been taught that life is a zero-sum game and everything your neighbor gets is something you lose.

So why do we need the emotion glad? The general answer would be the more ingredients we have the more recipes we can cook and the less fight over scraps there is.

The specific answer for which recipe the emotion glad is needed is more difficult and while typing I am hoping that I will come up with an answer soon.

How about this: Imagine that someone that you do not fully trust promised something important to you. Let’s say your forgetful friend Mike has to send your application for your dream job one day before the deadline because you can’t do that personally. Now, the moment you get the news that Mike followed through is the moment where you show gladness. Not indifference, not happiness, not joy - gladness.

It sends two messages to Mike and to yourself. 1) Hell yeah, I am really happy that you actually did that. 2) But I was doubting you. That is not a good sign. Please check what made me doubt you and I will check if maybe it is just me that for some reason was doubting you for no reason.

So what happens if gladness is not among the emotions you can deciver or show or you don’t know when to show gladness? You won’t be able to solve this specific situation properly which in turn leads to misunderstandings, evil thoughts, foul words, and in the end harmful actions.

That is inevitable because we also haven’t learned how to properly apologize. Almost none of us have ever received a proper apology that actually improves the connection between two souls. I might explain in another post why - so far please just trust me with that.

Now summarized, where are we? We have tons of daily life situations that cannot be properly solved because we are unable to properly manage and use our emotions thus causing inevitable harm.

Additionally, no one ever taught us how to repair the harm that is always bound to happen even if everyone knew the ABC of emotions. So we are stuck.

That is why this world is going down the drain right now. No reason to despair though. Learning to deal with your emotions is actually doable and surprisingly fun. And the good thing is: mistrust and hate spread fast but trust and love spread just as fast once you decide to trust and love.

my guides were happy to help