When talking about emotions online, people often mention emotional management. I'm not in a hurry to talk about management because I haven't even figured out what emotions are, so what is there to manage?
When I draw, I definitely have emotions and feelings. Each stroke carries emotions and feelings until the drawing is completed. If you look at my drawings, you might guess that I was in a bad mood when I was drawing, at least not a good one. Why would you make such a judgment? Because the image gives you a bad feeling, and then you make a judgment about the author's mood. But even if the author's mood is bad, you won't see any bad emotions in his drawings unless he makes you look ugly.
I have been drawing for a long time and have experienced many things before realizing that there is a difference between emotions and feelings, and they should not be confused.
Feelings can be physical or psychological. People often describe good emotions as "good feelings," such as happiness, joy, excitement, and contentment... in short, no more than two types: physical comfort and psychological comfort.
If we don't use these good feelings to describe emotions, how do we define "good emotions"?
Many people may not understand how feelings and emotions can be separated. This is because if the two are confused, people will first assume that feelings are the driving force of actions, and emotions are just side effects. For example, if someone insults me, I will hit him back. He insulted me and made me feel bad, and this bad feeling is the driving force behind my retaliation. The implication is that I hit him not because I initiated it, but because he made me feel bad and I had no choice but to fight back.
But in reality, there are too many counterexamples, too many people who won't fight back even if they are insulted, and won't curse back but just laugh it off. Can they not have feelings? This means that feelings are not the driving force of actions. Feelings are just a state of being affected by others' behavior, putting me in a bad state, and then I become angry. The anger is the driving force behind the retaliation.
If feelings and emotions are confused, it is impossible to judge what happened between experiencing feelings and taking action. This will cause people to only focus on changing their feelings and not be able to control their behavior. In fact, factors that affect feelings include not only behavior but also the environment, sensory contact, and physiological state at that time. Only focusing on feelings and ignoring emotions and behavior is like trying to stop boiling water by raising the temperature.
Therefore, we need to eliminate feelings to understand what emotions are.
Bad emotions are easier to understand, and the most common one is anger. Anger often makes people unaware of what they have done, but even so, if you measure their blood pressure at that time, it will definitely be higher than usual. The increase in blood pressure means that there has been a change compared to when they are not angry. Therefore, bad emotions are a force that drives changes and behaviors.
The problem is, if we set aside feelings, what is good emotion? Without feelings, bad emotions can make blood pressure rise, cause illness, or even death, but good emotions can only keep blood pressure normal and not make it "more normal." A happy person can become even happier, but they will never become "more normal."
This is a very difficult point to understand: good emotions are not the driving force behind changes, but a capacity to bear bad emotions. Good emotions can only represent how much bad emotions a person can bear. For example, if a rope breaks when carrying 100 kilograms, but an iron chain can carry 100 kilograms without any problem, we would say that the iron chain is better than the rope.
Two employees are called into the office by their boss and scolded. They are scolded by the same person with the same words, but one will fight back while the other remains silent. The same situation and the same feelings can lead to different emotions in different people, which is an undeniable fact. This is mentioned to better define what good emotions are.
So, let's continue analyzing using elementary school mathematics.
If we set the range from -9 to -1 to represent the level of bad emotions, -9 is the worst emotion, and 0 represents calmness. -1 to 0 is a relatively weak level of bad emotions, which can be called negative emotions.
You will find that some people's level of bad emotions never reaches -9, at most it can reach -5. So we can say that -5 is the limit of their capacity to bear bad emotions, and the distance between -5 and -9 is their level of good emotions, which is 4.
In other words, a person with a level 4 good emotion, even if the end of the world comes, their emotions will not be worse than -5.
Two points need to be noted here. First, the person's level of bad emotions can change with feelings, but the level of good emotions remains at 4. This is similar to lung capacity, where you don't always breathe in 5000 milliliters of air. Therefore, good emotions are actually a capacity to bear bad emotions.
Second, this capacity to bear bad emotions can also change. Just like lung capacity, it can be trained and improved.
Now let's look at the extreme case. If a person's level of good emotions is 0, it means that their level of bad emotions can reach -9, which may lead to destructive behavior. But it doesn't mean that they will encounter situations that make them reach -9 in their lifetime. In most cases, the level of bad emotions is between -1 and 0, generally negative emotions, and they may even reach 0 when encountering good things. 0 cannot be considered a negative emotion. In the state of having 0 bad emotions, there is calmness, a neutral emotion. But never think that after reaching 0, bad emotions will turn into positive ones. Good emotions do not directly come from bad emotions; they only come into play when bad emotions arise. Just like a spring, you only feel its elasticity when it is compressed, and this elasticity is similar to good emotions.
Another common misunderstanding is that good emotions are also a driving force that motivates action. For example, when I am drawing with great effort, it may seem like I am motivated and happy. In fact, this is just negative emotions accompanied by good feelings. I am venting and relieving negative emotions, which makes me feel good. When a warrior is ready to kill an enemy, filled with anger, he naturally feels heroic and righteous, and will never feel sympathy and compassion for fellow human beings. If his anger level is 0, he will basically not take action, let alone show sympathy and compassion.
If a person's capacity to bear bad emotions is 0, even if their level of bad emotions can reach -9, they must have experienced a state of 0 bad emotions, which is like being born. This is similar to a car being able to run even if it carries no load. This negative resilience is innate and everyone has it. Just like lung capacity, the ability to withstand pressure can be trained through experience.
Can the innate ability to withstand pressure change? Yes, it can. It can be trained into acquired resilience or be destroyed. When will it be destroyed? When a person firmly accepts certain misconceptions. What kind of misconception has such power? From what I know, it is when life experiences and the environment have never told them, and they themselves do not know, that making mistakes, especially doing something wrong, will not lead to suffering. This feedback loop is cut off. It is useless to think that knowing that making mistakes leads to suffering. This is not knowing. Knowing is when you touch fire and your hand hurts, you will never touch it again.
This kind of cognition can destroy the innate ability to withstand negative emotions. After this ability reaches 0, although they may still have moments without negative emotions, they can only experience neutrality and calmness, and will never experience good emotions. They will never enhance their capacity to bear negative emotions until they begin to doubt their inherent experiences and cognition.
Finally, let's leave a question: Do emotions and feelings really have a distinction between good and bad?