Emotion

 What Is Emotion?

Emotion is a state of mind. However, it is important to distinguish between emotion, feeling, and compassion. Emotion includes concepts like love and its opposite, hatred. One of the most beautiful emotions is harmony, whereas envy and jealousy rank among the worst.

Feeling

A feeling can be either good or bad. Interestingly, feelings often govern a person's life far more than they might admit. If something gives you a good feeling, it fulfills you, and you enjoy doing it. Conversely, if something causes a bad or unpleasant feeling, you won't want to do it – and if you don't have to, you simply won't.

Compassion

Compassion is a type of emotion that modern times have practically pushed aside because, in today's world, there simply isn't time for compassion. The demands of modern life force people not to dwell on emotions, feelings, or compassion. To survive, succeed, have a well-paid job, a beautiful home, and live contentedly, a person needs to be intelligent and hardworking – but, unfortunately, also often devoid of emotion.

Love

Love takes many forms. It is an emotion a person may feel toward themselves, their partner, children, parents, objects, food, or even their own feelings. But what is love, really? How does it manifest, how do we express it, and how do we demonstrate it? Where does love end and possession or oppression begin? Every person has different standards – for one, love might be shown through care, worry, or readiness to help in any situation, even being willing to "lay down their life" for another. But what if the person to whom you're trying to show love perceives it differently? What if their standards of love differ from yours? Then you might feel that they don't reciprocate your love enough, while they may feel you're oppressing and limiting them.

Harmony and Everyday Life

How, then, do we determine whether we're still expressing love or, from their perspective, already causing harm? Ideally, you're in a state of harmony, mutually expressing love in ways the other person envisions. Unfortunately, in today's fast-paced world, finding time for harmony with another is almost impossible. Think about it – what's the first thought that comes to your mind upon waking? Is it your partner? Your child? Your family? The percentage of people like this is minimal. For most, the first thought is about what currently troubles them the most. For some, it's illness – whether their own or that of a loved one. For others, it's financial situations, lack of money (loan payments, leases, mortgages). Still others worry about survival (food, energy, car repairs, housing). Many are troubled by their position at work, school, or society. How many people wake up feeling peace, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life? And if your first thought upon waking is about the stress, worries, and rush of the day ahead, what will your day – your life – look like?

Love and Hatred

Let's return to love. If you try to express love in your own way to someone with different standards who perceives it as oppression, love can eventually turn into hatred. The line between love and hatred is incredibly thin. If you believe you're expressing love but they see it differently because they value different things, they won't reciprocate your love. This creates a problem – if your love isn't reciprocated, you start to feel misunderstood and question why. It's even worse if the person you're trying to show love seems indifferent to it and appears content in life. This often leads to envy and jealousy, which usually culminate in hatred. By the time you reach hatred, most things are already lost.

Reflection

Take a look at the people around you – your partner, loved ones, acquaintances. Do they seem content with their lives? Paradoxically, the "simplest" people tend to be the most content. They live their lives in peace because they have modest needs and goals. In contrast, the more intelligent a person is, the higher their demands are. They strive for success and recognition and want to feel unique and appreciated. But how do we measure success in today's society? People are judged by others, by society. Nowadays, people feel successful and respected if they have a good job, a high salary, an expensive luxury car, a mobile phone, fashionable clothing, and if they are attractive to others. People today are evaluated by entirely different standards than in the past – based on status, appearance, wealth, and social success. The "electronic" nature of society today contributes significantly to this. Many people now spend most of their time online, using social media, chats, emails, videos, and photos to showcase their success. They compete over subscribers, likes, views, followers, etc. Unfortunately, this sparks envy and hatred among the less successful on a massive scale. If people don't return to treating each other as equals – recognizing that no person can do everything and that each individual is unique in their own way – human society will ultimately destroy itself.

Personal Connection

In the past, when you said you knew someone, it meant you truly knew them as a person because you interacted with them "physically" and personally. There was no internet, phones were for calling, and photos were on paper. To share them, you had to visit someone in person. This fostered a genuine, "personal" understanding of their emotions and feelings. Today, we post photos and videos on social media, judging their quality and success by likes, subscribers, and followers. But no one truly knows what those who "admire" us think about us. In today's digital world, there is a vast amount of hidden envy and hatred stemming from it. Media outlets are a chapter of their own.

In Summary

If no significant change occurs in the future, human society is doomed to collapse.

AI Summary 

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On Your Reflection About Emotion

Your reflection on emotion touches on several key points:

Emotion, feeling, and compassion:
Distinguishing between emotion (e.g., love, hatred), feeling (good or bad), and compassion.

Feeling:

How feelings influence human life far more than people usually admit.

Compassion:

How modern times have nearly eliminated compassion due to a lack of time.

Love:

The different forms of love and how it manifests. You explore the boundaries between love, possession, and oppression.

Harmony and everyday life:

The difficulty of finding time for harmony with others in today's fast-paced world.

Love and hatred:

How differing standards of love can lead to feelings of oppression and the transition from love to hatred.

Reflection:

How people measure success in today's society and how it impacts their behavior.

Personal connection:

How personal connections and the perception of emotions and feelings were more authentic in the past compared to today's digital age.

Conclusion:

A warning of humanity's potential downfall if there is no significant change in interpersonal relationships.