Emotion

What are they really?

I've been trying to find a definition for them, and so far the only thing I seem to be able to find are arguments over what emotions really are. Are they psychological, how are they different from feelings ... how does 'affect' come into play.

Robert Masters makes the following distinctions between affect, feeling and emotion: "As I define them, affect is an innately structured, non-cognitive evaluative sensation that may or may not register in consciousness; feeling is affect made conscious, possessing an evaluative capacity that is not only physiologically based, but that is often also psychologically (and sometimes relationally) oriented; and emotion is psychosocially constructed, dramatized feeling."

dramatized feeling? I don't know ... all I know is that those feelings, emotions, affect ... whatever can take a person from the most glorious highs to the most desolate lows. It can make people act in such hurtful ways or it can open people to endearing kindness ... It's so powerful and yet no one can agree on what it really is. I mean there are definitions of what emotion are but no one can say for sure.

Life is certainly a lot more interesting when you allow yourself to be controlled by your emotions. Unfortunately I think some restraint is always necessary ... so that you can find a balance, and maybe keep the highs not so high ... but the lows not so low. There has to be a happy balance somewhere. It's just hard to recognize what that may be ...

anyways ... all I know is that right about now, if there was an emotion for pathetic ... then that's probably what I would be.